An advanced technological age has brought us many things: influencers, tiktok dances, a neverending cycle of brainrot, the feeling of being constantly surveilled.
It is easier now than ever, to pull out your phone, record yourself or someone else, and post it for the whole world to see. And it is easier than ever for the whole world to share their opinions on it. With this ability to record and post quickly comes a huge responsibility: be perfect always, or potentially lose your job, your education, and your entire future overnight.
Those with a platform face an army of viewers who can turn on them at any moment with any single mistake. On the flip side, anyone recorded looking at someone the wrong way without context could be digitally crucified. This constant surveillance breeds paranoia. Nobody wants to be caught saying or doing something that could potentially cost them their entire livelihood. This leads to trying to be right all the time. The fear of being harped on eliminates space for mistakes, our own or others.
Social media is so quick to tear people down for not conforming to our views. Constant exposure to curated information leaves us almost confused and personally offended when someone doesn’t say the “right” thing. The echo chambers within the internet allow us to believe that we can never be wrong. They allow us to ignore other perspectives and nitpick little things in a statement that are not quite “right.” It primes us to be more reactive than proactive in our conversations. Rather than try to correct and move on, we make a spectacle and blow up, inciting more attention, which may lead the other party to become defensive or say what we want to hear to diminish our reactiveness.
We must reflect when we catch ourselves thinking like this, or getting upset at an opinion that is not exactly like ours. In other words: Do you actually care about an issue or do you care more about painting yourself as morally correct? As better? As perfect?
We critique others for holding different beliefs, and rather than be unified in our achievement of a certain goal or outcome, we use it as a means to divide and separate ourselves from others.
The goal should not be to appear right but to do the right thing regardless of whether someone is watching or not. Performance for the sake of looking good is ruining our ability to actually get things done.
We should be capable of admitting that we actually are not educated on every single thing, and the policing of others’ behaviors without checking ourselves. We should try actually familiarizing ourselves with issues and their nuances rather than regurgitating tiktok talking points. We have to learn from each other.
Additionally, our inability to let people make mistakes andlearn from them stifles growth. It causes people to prefer silence to the risk of saying something imperfectly. The people who are unafraid to be loud and wrong or be corrected end up learning the most. These people however, are also most likely to be persecuted online. Being scared of being wrong hinders our growth. It also stops us from targeting the institutions responsible because we are too busy trying to correct others. To change this culture is to open doors to productive conversation and progress.
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