APCC is committed to educating Cape Codders about the implications that their yard care choices have on water quality, native species preservation, soils, habitat, and climate change. Our postings provide a lot of information that people can sort through and use to make choices that reflect their own objectives and values. Intrinsic to our approach to education is the premise that given information, our readers have both the capacity and interest to apply concepts of conservation principles to their daily living choices. We receive enough positive feedback to believe that this approach works.
It is in this context that I found a social media-based discussion around one of our recent posts so disheartening. The post in question forwarded a story about limits on gas-powered leaf blowers elsewhere in Massachusetts. The conversation it prompted demonstrated how often social media is used as a tool by those who prefer to hijack information to promote a culture war that shuts down conversation. I suppose it is often easier to attack a premise with distortion and misinformation when the merits are not on your side. Rather than comment on the merits, or lack thereof, of reduced use of leaf blowers, the discussion focused on “us versus them,” on “there they go again taking something away from us,” and on “being against jobs, the elderly and the middle class.” From there the anger, bile and cynicism poured out.
While I have not seen it, I am pretty sure that commentary followed a playbook or script designed to inflame and divide via social media conversation. The use of broad dog whistle terms like “us,” “them,” and “take away” strike me as intended to elicit knee jerk responses that not only interfere with, but prevent, the type of thought the original posting was intended to prompt. Somebody somewhere has an algorithm that informs commenters on what terms to use to get the views, clicks and likes that provide the digital world validation that has come to substitute for actual thought and communication. The sound you hear in the background is that of a mind slamming shut. Closed minds cannot take in new information, even information that if acted upon would be beneficial for the person whose mind is closed to it. Worse yet, the rote nature of the triggered responses draws more of the same from the echo chamber and drowns out independent thinking.
Somewhere along the way these mass communication tools were highjacked and have helped society turn its back on individual thought. There are a lot of problems facing the world these days and we need more, not fewer, brains working to solve them. So put down the leaf blower and think about it for a bit.
