Coronavirus has confined us to our homes, where our understanding of the world is narrowed to what we read, listen to and watch via various media streams, but most notably – social media.
Social media platforms such as Facebook addict us with hyper-personalised feeds of world events, carefully curated with one goal: to gain and retain our attention for as long as possible, in turn maximising billion dollar per week advertising revenues.
Over time, this illusion of understanding adds up to flagrant misinformation, conspiracy and even insurrection of democracy. The way we consume social media is eroding truth and our faith in the concept of truth itself. Unity is a necessity of change; currently the problem isn’t that people are on different pages when it comes to problematic topics, but that we are all reading entirely different books, believing different sets of facts, and making little progress against the existential problems faced by the world today.
How can we save the planet when 16% of us can’t even agree on its shape…
I believe that coronavirus and the ensuing lockdowns have highlighted this issue and therefore presented an opportunity. Public awareness of the issue and distrust in the services in question is at an all time high. If reform is to be set in motion now is the moment.
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