Not every answer is the right one

Not too long ago I was having a conversation with my parents and we talked about how I find it crazy that back then, you could not find an answer to all your questions. If my parents had a discussion with their siblings they could look it up in the encyclopaedia they had at home, but if it was not in there, they would not have an answer. That is a vast contrast to how I go through life. Sometimes when I try to go to sleep, I cannot, because I do not know the answer to a question I had earlier that day. So I would grab my phone and have a quick google search.

I think it is not healthy that I have such an urge to knowing the answer, but nowadays it is so easy to find an answer to every question you have. In this ease to find an answer, is a danger though, because how do we know, that what we read is true.

An agenda?

Take for example this reddit post I found. It showcases data about the approval rate of Donald Trump in various age groups in the United States. If you look at it, at first glance it looks like a very neutral piece of information, without it speaking in favour of or against Trump. And I think that it is very good at doing that, a very neutral piece of information without pushing an agenda. If you look a bit further into it, by opening the account of the person who posted it, you immediately come across a link of an organization which is outspoken anti-trump. Furthermore you see that the person mostly posts on the r/democrats page. This shows the person clearly does not like Donald Trump, so maybe the original post is pushing an agenda.

This is the danger of information nowadays, it can look like something is impartial, but maybe it is not. So how do you know if something is true and how critical do we need to be.

I think we have to be very careful and have to stay critical! You can find a lot of information on the internet, but the biggest problem about that in my eyes, is that you can find information which supports every stance on a stand. I think that a lot of people will agree that the earth is a globe, but there is a group of people that think the earth is flat and you can find a lot of information which may support that statement. I think you have the same problem with vaccines. I cannot see how the government would like to harm you by giving you ‘unhealthy’ vaccines, but you can find a lot of information about how bad vaccines are and why a government would like to give you vaccines that would make you sick.

What to do?

Well, how do I know if something is true and if it is trustworthy?
Firstly, if there is no source mentioned? I think that would be a sign to not completely trust the information, if you read something and they cannot tell you where it is from, you would not be able to check it. Which could show that the information may be incorrect.
Secondly, you could always check the source of information. Is it something renowned or is the source unknown? I would say a renowned source has a higher chance of spreading truthful information, because a source would not be well known if it is always spreading misinformation.
Thirdly, it is important to check the narrative behind the story you read. Is the author or the person who posts this piece of information trying to push an agenda? If they are doing that, you need to be wary of the fact that they could exaggerate, to help their agenda.
Lastly, the most important thing is to stay critical! Watch out for all the things above and trust your gut feeling, if you feel something is of, maybe it is!