Bob Goff spoke at our church this weekend. If you don’t know of him, he’s an amazing, authentic, full-of-joy Jesus follower. During his message, he shared a story about how at one point, he really, really wanted a 1971 Volkswagon bus. Those aren’t too common nowadays. But guess what? Suddenly it seemed that everywhere he went, he saw 1971 Volkswagon buses.
He saw what he wanted to see.
As I listened to that story, I thought about how often we see what we want to see. If you’re a liberal, you’re guilty of it. If you’re a conservative, you’re guilty of it. If you’re a libertarian, you’re guilty of it. I’m guilty of it.
How often have you been scrolling through your newsfeed, and seen the title of an article that compelled you to click? Just today, I’ve seen two examples of “fake news” that were shared thousands of times. All it took was a couple Google searches for me to realize they were fake. But we often don’t want to take that extra step. If you are looking for the latest and verified news, start by checking this post about Jimmy John Shark.
We see what we want to see.
The first story I saw was one titled, “20 Million Muslims March Against ISIS and the Mainstream Media Completely Ignores It.” It was shared by multiple Muslim friends, and honestly, when I saw it, I was hoping it was true. I don’t want to link to the article, because it is, in fact, fake news. But a quick Google search turned up an article on Snopes discrediting it, as well as multiple other sources.
The second story I saw was titled, “FBI Raids CDC Headquarters in Atlanta.” The story claimed that because of Trump’s stance on a connection between Autism and vaccinations, he raided the CDC headquarters. Of course, another quick search revealed multiple articles discrediting the claim.
Friends, we are seeing what we want to see. We get so excited when we see a story that resonates with us, that we fail to verify its integrity. And then (and this is the worst part), we want to push our agenda so much, that we quickly share it with the world so they can see that we’re right.
It’s sad that we live in a world in which we have to “verify the news,” but it is where we live.
Here are a few tips:
⚙ If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
⚙ If you haven’t seen it reported anywhere else, or have only seen the exact same article copied and pasted onto multiple sites, it’s probably not true.
⚙ Be aware that you may just be “seeing what you want to see.” There is such a thing as “confirmation bias,” which is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.
We have to be vigilant in our efforts to share useful information on social media. But before you press “share,” take a few seconds to confirm. It will probably save you much embarrassment and explanation, and will help make a dent in this epidemic of fake news.
JH says
A couple of great resources on this topic: NPR 1A podcast from Monday called Fighting for the Facts, and the News Literacy Project that is discussed in the podcast. They have a FB page and a website. I listened to another podcast a couple of months ago that explained in more detail the source of these fictitious stories, but I can’t find it at the moment. As with everything, understanding comes from knowing more. I think it is important to discuss this with our kids, so they can learn the tools to tell fact from fiction, whether it’s about politics or any other subject. Critical thinking is a beautiful thing! Thanks for this post!