This past month, the internet has been, to say the least, excruciatingly exhausting to use. Wanting to casually scroll through social media has been costing us more than we can imagine. This eerie fatigue is none other than the outcome of being constantly “informed” and exposed.
Every single piece of news screams doom, shortage and brings an ‘every man for himself’ feeling to the table. Especially since the whole Iran-US fiasco, its orchestration has been hammering home a sense of perpetual insecurity and a global rise in fear. It is only growing with no chance of diminishing any soon thus also causing a higher risk perception among people.
Conspiracies have moved quickly through the grapevine as we simultaneously get force-fed a daily nihilistic overview on the conflict. That too, more conjecture than information. I would not pretend to be above all this fear, for I find myself refreshing X to stay updated on what’s going to happen next. Noticing a significant increase in fear mongering posts persuading a ‘stock up now’ narrative accompanied by survival checklists. This fear is being marketed and pushed into our news feeds. The more outrageous the information, the more views it attracts because it has no anchor, no verification, only engagement. It’s like every single content, news, and social media account is in a race, to see who can cause the most panic among the people.
Half of us are already bypassing rationality in an attempt to prepare for what is to come next, forgetting how, rationality must be the first and foremost thing we can’t afford running out of.
Half of us are already bypassing rationality in an attempt to prepare for what is to come next, forgetting how, rationality must be the first and foremost thing we can’t afford running out of. When the mass population submits to fear, they submit to a plethora of other such events that they wouldn’t normally. Some things are being narrated long before they’re actually material, because repetition creates a sense of credibility.
These threats are being manufactured, constructed and regurgitated, again, and again. The news isn’t informing us anymore, it’s exhausting us. That too, the sort that comes, not from official sources but random accounts that just have good reach.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA has warned against spreading misinformation and crisis content in a bid to curb fake news whilst blocking several social media accounts as well. This is an excellent step towards mindful media consumption, despite having its own risks.
While keeping a rational approach towards the whole issue at hand, we must take care of credibility. Co-verifying our sources, resisting the urge to sensationalize any information we receive and reinforce credibility.
The need to keep yourself in check as to how you’re engaging with information and collectively interacting with it has not been as imperative as it is today. Choose how you want to consume your crisis by acknowledging how and by whom it is being constructed by. The conflict is not fiction, and so isn’t the chance of escalations. Nonetheless the speed at which our minds are pressured into being informed 24/7 is causing us more damage in the longer run. One must fight this constructed anxiety for self-preservation in times like these for our mental well-being.
The writer is alumnus of National Defence University.