Quite often we end up reading articles we see on the Internet based on the little that we see in the title. Sure it can be misleading, but anything to catch the reader’s eye will do for the writer. This is the case when it comes to this article: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/social-media-makes-student-writing-worse-teachers/story?id=19677570As is the case with some articles, the title in the link says that “social media makes writing worse teachers,” but if you visit the website, the title actually reads ” Social Media Makes for Better Student Writing, Not Worse, Teachers Say.” This goes to show that even when we think we know something by seeing the title, or reading a little blurb from a text, we can’t decipher the whole story.
We live in the age of technology, and with that comes a great reward with even greater risk. One of the biggest problems we face today as a society is the idea of misinformation. More and more people are depending on news sources of their own viewpoints, as shown in this study. This makes it so easy to only take one side of the story into account when formulating an opinion based on your ‘knowledge’ of the situation. We as humans are very easily influenced, and if we take one person’s word for everything, we can very easily find ourselves with very similar views as said person. I can say I am a victim of that, because growing up my dad said Bon Jovi was the best singer ever, and guess who just bought tickets to see him in Cleveland March 19? Anyways, we have to do extensive research into a topic before we can really make a distinction between what is informational and what is influential.
Apart from that, the idea of making a decision based on the title of an article is even more absurd. No matter what you do, where you read something, how you read it, or when you read it, you should always make an effort to do a little more digging. I could make a statement right now that fries are objectively the best side dish on the planet, and without fact checking me, I have you fooled. Overall, we have to take everything we read into consideration when separating fact from fiction, and information from persuasion. It’s easy to make a decision by reading a title, it’s much easier and better when you’ve done your research.