In the world of the Internet and social media, we consume a lot of data. The human brain is loaded daily with 34 GB of information. We don’t put any time to check whether the information is correct or not. It is not easy to slow down and spend our time verifying the details of every piece of information. But to make a better decision in life this is important.
Why do we need reliable information?
Let me tell you about one small incident from the Mahabharata.
Kauravas and Pandavas were fighting a war against each other. Ashwatthama was the son of Dronacharya. Also, there was an elephant named Ashwatthama fighting in the war. Pandavas tried so hard but they were not able to defeat Dronacharya. When the elephant was killed, Pandavas take a chance and announced that Ashwatthama got killed. Dronacharya didn’t verify or listened to full details and lost his senses and got killed.
Every piece of information leads you to a path. It could be a better or worse direction in life.
This is why we need to verify the information, to make better decisions. In our daily life, we are altering so many things based on what we watch, read, and listen to on the internet.
How do we handle information?
There are lots of facts, photos, memes, and videos running on the internet to get likes, followers, and subscribers. We share these media with friends and family because we think this will help them. This will make their life better.
How information is created
Through research or any kind of study with many experiments, the researcher concludes and shares the result with the world. Second, through our experiences, these are personal truths.
For example… Let’s say I experience excellent sleep if I drink milk every day. And I feel like wow this is something I should share with everybody. I will share it with friends and family. Also will share it on social media as well. If I have a meme page or any media where I share information. So I will make a meme by downloading one photo of the milk and adding the text – “If you drink one glass of milk every day, it helps you to sleep better and faster”
If I am a smart person, I will write like this to spread it faster –“As per a study by Stanford University on more than 1000 people, if they drink milk every day it helps them to sleep better and faster”
How information is shared
- Mostly by sharing content on the internet by us with friends, family, and followers.
- By anyone who is curating information for content to share on the Internet.
Reliability of information
So this is the system that I use almost whenever there is something I am learning or have heard of a new thing. It is always related to the source of Information. If that passes through the system then I will use my logical mind to trust that information.
I call it the “Effort to Information Ratio”. When you think of the reliability of the information. It depends on the source, the effort taken to bring that information, and how hard the reward is to get.
Low efforts & Quick reward = Less reliable information
High efforts & Delayed reward = More reliable information
Easy efforts and quick rewards lead to less reliable information. Chances are higher reliability of information when efforts are high and reward is delayed.
I have listed, how I trust sources with effort level. You can design your own according to, how you consume information.
Effort Level 1
- Source – Memes, Tweets, reels, and short-form content
- Reward – Instant. It does not require much time to feel rewarded for making this content.
- It requires very low effort to share information.
Effort Level 2
- Source – Videos on YouTube
- Reward – This takes some time to reach people. The reward is a bit delayed.
- It requires a lot of effort to find information and curate it for sharing on the internet. Sometimes it requires way more effort to film videos.
Effort Level 3
- Source – Articles, blogs
- Reward – Delayed and sometimes infinite time.
- It requires a lot of effort to find information and curate it for sharing on the internet.
Effort Level 4
- Source – Books
- Reward – Heavily delayed. It takes a lot to reach people.
- It requires a very high amount of effort to gather such information and create one book. Also, it requires another effort to find publishers who publishes their book.
Effort Level 5
- Source – Research and studies
- Reward – Heavily delayed, sometimes it takes years or decades to get rewarded for what you did.
- It requires resources, desired environment, time, and lots of things to test things. and years to test in different scenarios.
Well, most of us aren’t going to look in this manner to trust sources but with this system, you will start trusting people who share information in your life. But from time to time, it is essential that we verify this information. It also requires verifying whatever information you grab on the internet, not always but from time to time making sure whatever you grab in your mind is true and real.
Also, keep in mind it is not possible to consume 100% true and real information but by practice, you will consume better content overall.
