Unnecessary opinions and the broken system that causes them

People have opinions. In fact, people have a lot of opinions. Opinions about a lot of different things. Which is not inherently a bad thing; people are allowed to have opinions, and they're even allowed to have different opinions from one another (unless it's about basic human rights, but that's a topic for a whole different post). In fact, if you spend any time at all on the internet, it's nearly impossible to avoid other people's opinions. Especially on social media, and that goes doubly for comment sections and reply threads on social media. Opinions on everything. About the latest episode of that TV show that aired last night. About the outfit that this celebrity wore to that event the other week. About... the validity of scientific facts? About intricate political situations that they're not even part of? And more generally, about things they never even considered until they read a headline about it? What's going on here? Why is everybody suddenly an expert on just about everything?

Now, I realize this is some fairly strong generalization on my part. Not everybody on the internet is some layman, with no prior experience or knowledge. There are genuine experts out there. There are people that make sure they have researched a thing to a certain degree before formulating any thoughts about said thing. However, for every single person like that out there, there seems to be someone else unceremoniously butting into the conversation, clearly very uninformed, spouting their thoughts and opinions.

And yes, I'm going to call out the blatant hypocrisy here before someone else does: I am not an expert on any of the things I've talked about up until this point. Nor am I an expert on the things I'll be speculating about later on in this post. I feel very comfortable admitting that. And writing this, I've been sitting here for the past five minutes trying to come up with anything to defend myself against that rhetoric, and honestly, I'm drawing a blank. So maybe that makes me just as bad as those people. I don't know, I'll leave that judgment up to you.

That said, I strongly believe that the world would be a nicer place if more people would say "I don't know" more often - ideally followed by an "but let's find out!" After all, we live in an age where basically everyone has a smart device with access to the internet within reach at all times. However, I get the impression that some people will rather use said online devices to quickly post any new opinions to whoever will listen, than to actually research the subject matter to which those opinions relate. Now why would that be?

I'll take a page out of my own book here, and answer that question with a strong and confident "I don't know". I do have a guess, though. Because I'm actually not here to blame or shame those people, as I legitimately believe that it's not their fault. I think they are being coerced to share their opinions, often and explicitly, by other people, but it's not those people's fault either. You're making no sense at all, I hear you thinking, but let me explain.

How often have you gotten to the end of a YouTube video, and heard something along the lines of "But what are your thoughts about this? Leave them down in the comments below"? Questions like this, invitations to freely share your opinions, about anything, are all over the internet. All over your social media pages. Once you become aware of them, you'll notice just how prevalent they actually are. And that makes a lot of sense: content creators want your engagement, preferably as much as possible. Be it YouTubers, be it Facebook pages, be it viral Tweets (X'es? Xeets? X posts?). Any engagement is good engagement, because it will get them on that algorithm.

If you're looking for proof of that statement, look no further than those bullshit mobile game ads that you see everywhere. The ones that purposely misrepresent - or worse: blatantly lie about - gameplay aspects of their product. Those ads serve no other purpose than to get rage comments on them, because it will get them those clicks. Because it, too, will get them on that algorithm.

And here, I think, is where we get to the heart of this. People sharing their every uninformed opinion are not the issue. People inviting others to share their every uninformed opinion are not the issue. It's the algorithm allowing that kind of content to thrive that is the issue. Because people having opinions on everything is not the only result of this. Its consequences extend way beyond that.

The political divide between left and right, between progressive and conservative, feels greater than it's ever been. What's more, extremism in either direction appears to become increasingly more common. It's because we're getting popular content pushed on us by this algorithm, regardless of whether we agree with the subject matter of said content or not. Staying exclusively within your own circles has become virtually impossible. Your suggested posts, or suggested pages, will show you opinions that you disagree with on the most fundamental level. And believe me, I know just how hard it is to keep yourself out of these discussions. Even if you do manage to suppress the urge to get involved in the discourse, there's a decent chance you'll be reading through what other people have been commenting. The algorithm doesn't care. If you've stopped scrolling, it's counting that as engagement, and will make sure that you'll be seeing more of that in the future, and that other people will be seeing more of that in the future. Other people that might have less reservations about sharing their opinions than you do.

So how will we fix this? Can we even fix this? I'm afraid my answer to both those questions, once again, is going to be a resounding "I don't know". Then again, perhaps that's exactly what we need more of. More of "I don't know", or specifically "I don't have enough information to form a valid opinion on this".

"But let's find out."

DISCLAIMER AT THE END: I've stated this before, but I want to stress again that I'm no expert on any of these things. I could be completely wrong on all the things that I've written above. I've found no evidence to absolutely disprove these things. I've also found no evidence to absolutely confirm these things. So, as with most things you read online, apply some grains of salt, and feel free to form your own opinions. After a sufficient amount of research, of course.