Isolation in the Digital Age

I shouldn’t be appalled, but I am. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

Whether it’s the conversation about race, policing, immigration, or just about anything, the tone is downright ugly. Every discussion is polarized. It’s either/or and black/white. There is little nuance. If you try to bring nuance you’re seen as soft one way or the other.

Why is that?

Why can we not have real and nuanced conversation? Why is it that each of us are only looking for opportunities to shout down our “opponent”? Where is the real conversation? Where is the honest back and forth where people are willing to learn from one another? Where is the humility in the conversation?

I think a significant part of this is that there we are isolating ourselves. We live in a time when people are supposed to be more connected than ever. The problem is that we are also in a time when we can insulate ourselves from people who disagree with us. We have so many choices in our media and information intake that we can choose to only hear the voices that agree with us. We can filter our “friends” on Facebook and who we “follow” on Twitter. There are news sources all over the spectrum and we can choose to only engage with those whom we agree with.

This isolation and insulation from differing perspectives hardens us. We become like Plato’s cave people. We are largely losing our ability to engage with people who disagree with us.

When this happens nuance goes out the window. When this happens we begin to shout down our opponent. We lose real conversation and have no desire to learn from one another. We become arrogant.

I challenge you to open your information streams to those who disagree with you. Engage with them. Learn from them. Begin to learn the nuances. Don’t be satisfied with either/or, binary perspectives. You’re better than that.

Go deeper.

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