How much knowledge is good knowledge? The answer to it is as complicated as the question. Nevertheless, a section of people, or a large number of them, are constantly in pursuit of knowledge even though there is no relation between their area, study and even interest or hobby.
These types of people are not content with what they have acquired in the course of their hard pursuit and major time investment. Wastage of time would be a better expression for such efforts because they not only waste their own time but the time of many others who otherwise would have utilised the time in a better way. They want everyone to know their ‘acquired knowledge’ and keep on spreading it until someone takes it seriously, does a fact check and announces that the ‘knowledge’ being spread is either fake, morphed or far from any truth.
In the days of the Internet of things, applications are developed with good intentions to serve social, commercial and even cultural purposes. But people with vested interests hijack them for their own personal needs and dirty deeds that do more harm than good.
Yes, it is all about social media. The false content being spread there needs to be checked and rechecked before believing or re-sending to acquaintances. In most cases, the gullible audiences are victims up to the level of social and psychological problems, which is called ‘infodemic’ by psychologists.
The psychological cost of infodemic is “unimaginably far-reaching.”
Infodemic creates a vicious cycle, the structural significance of which needs to be understood. “Infodemic leads to confusion and confused individuals are the ablest hosts of developing fear and anxiety. The loss of reasoning and judgment sets in.
Once this operation of anxiety and fear begins, it leads to high suggestibility among individuals. The mental filter which is completely corrupted under the influence of a vicious cycle begins allowing the free flow of misinformation at micro and macro levels,” said Dr Sidra Afzal, a clinical psychologist.
Infodemic leads to too much information flow, making the receivers clinically confused, afraid and indecisive in most cases. There are cases developed during the Covid-19 pandemic which started treatments based on the ‘knowledge’ spread on WhatsApp, fell victim to wrong information and finally turned into psychological cases.
“There were some who turned into cleanliness maniacs, spending most of their time cleaning hands and other body parts, while many others seriously believed that Covid-19 was nothing but propaganda launched by some pharma vested interests. There were instances where people suffered due to wrong herbal treatments and ended up with irreparable losses medically,” said another psychologist with a strong suggestion for some mechanism to control this bad practice.
Yes, there is no limit to knowledge, but the knowledge earned should be authentic, well researched and far from bias and vested interests.
@patkaushal
