Our Collective Amnesia and the Problem of the Five Minute Expert
A great number of factors came into play in regards to this article. It began when I read that, in America at least, reading has declined yet again. Reading has declined by 7% and American children are falling behind in reading compared to the rest of the world.
The same day, someone commented to me that they wouldn’t define the human race as ignorant, just forgetful, some cultures more than others. This intrigued me and it was about a month before Russian forces moved into Ukraine, but I remembered it almost as soon as the news broke and the propaganda cycle began.
Why is it so easy for the media to shape the narrative in America, and is it connected to the lack of reading?
I’m going to boldly, and perhaps incorrectly, declare that, yes, they’re related. There are other factors, too, such as racial tension being high and political lines being drawn so deeply in the sand that there’s a canyon between political parties so wide that as people gaze across it, they believe they are only seeing monsters standing on the other side, despite the fact that the two reigning parties in the USA have more in common than they do in differences.
But, to get back on track, reading does play a role in it. Our addiction to instant gratification and desire to be finished with everything in a matter of minutes so we can move on to something else and give our brains the next “high” has led to a world where people don’t like getting buried in a book, and therefore they lack all the information and context they need to form thought-out opinions.
The News Cycle and Amnesia
Trends come and go at rapid-fire speed lately. Unless the subject is Ukraine or COVID-19, it seems that most things cycle out of the news feeds fairly quickly. As politically charged as we’ve become, this overabundance of information is gone so fast that it leaves the memory in short order.
Do you remember how, after the Bush years, it was the Democrats who were the anti-war party?
Obama ran on a platform that promised an end to the invasions in the Middle East (he expanded them in the end) and was considered a normal Democrat, yet when Ron Paul, a Libertarian-leaning Republican, was in the debates, he was accused of being out of step with the Republican party for his strong anti-war leanings, despite his insistence that the Republican party had been the anti-war party in the past.
After Obama was elected and proceeded to expand the invasions (I call them invasions, as wars have to be declared by Congress and that never happened) and implement an even deadlier drone strike program, the Democrats, much like the Republicans before them, became far more hawkish in order to support the new POTUS. During the 2021 election, Democrat Tulsi Gabbard was marginalized for her firm stance against regime-change wars.
In a similar vein, years of news articles and documentaries reporting on the rampant corruption in Ukraine and its alarming tolerance of Neo-Nazis have seemingly been memory-holed in the minds of many people now that anti-Russian propaganda, which actually began when Hillary Clinton falsely accused Russia of election interference (and it’s since become mainstream to point the finger at elusive ‘Russian bots’ for everything from bad movie reviews to all things unfavorable to Democrats), and now has an outlet. This isn’t to say that I support Russia’s invasion, but it certainly wasn’t unprovoked and Ukraine is not the bastion of freedom and democracy people are making it out to be.
Why does this happen?
Well, in the Ukraine affair, I believe much of the previous reporting on the corruption running rampant there was simply overlooked because it never had much of an impact on everyday Americans. For most of us, then-senator Obama’s coup to overthrow the democratically elected Ukrainian President to install a more anti-Russian, pro-American puppet is news we never heard or didn’t think much of. Why would we care, except perhaps out of principle?
However, for most issues, it simply comes from the fact that we read multiple news articles per day, so how are we expected to remember them long-term? Especially when the news topics are constantly changing, it becomes more difficult to really remember an event with clarity and even harder to have such a firm grasp on a topic that your opinion on it comes from a place of true understanding.
This is in contrast to books, which are a deep dive into a subject and, owing to the time invested in completing a book, is more committed to memory, even if many of the nitty-gritty details become fuzzy.
Speaking of Books…
It’s unfortunate that there’s been such a steep decline in reading. As a published fiction author (I don’t come from the place of authority to write most nonfiction topics), I must admit to partially being sad simply because it means less revenue for me. But on a more serious note, this decline in reading can be linked to ignorance.
Now, before everyone jumps down my throat, hear me out. You can make the technical argument that we’re reading (and writing) more than ever, just in the form of articles, forum posts, texts, and bulletins. I’ll give you that, and my intention isn’t to knock these things. I myself both read and write articles (you’re here, aren’t you?) and am far more prone to letting professors Google and YouTube help me solve a conundrum than I am likely to head to a bookstore and search out an answer.
My goal here is to say that these things have their place, but some topics are far to big to be covered in a five-minute article or lengthy forum post with a handy tl;dr tacked onto the end of it. Complex issues require far more than a blurb if you want to fully understand them, and so many people with the strongest of opinions are the ones I like to call the five-minute experts, as the only information they have comes from a few short news articles, often with a strong narrative bias.
If you read three or more articles each day, how likely are you to remember them a month later? Probably not too terribly high. This is why, here on read.cash, we like to take advantage of the ability to save articles we really liked.
But if you read a book about a topic and spent even just half an hour every day reading until you finished it, how likely are you to remember it a month later? Very high! In fact, you might remember the general details and broad strokes quite well years later. This is because you were invested in the topic and committed time to do a deep dive.
Both articles and books can be opinionated, but a series of short articles all from one news source or journalist can sometimes start to feel less like news and more like a mantra being repeated over and over. Such publications thrive on our current culture of instant gratification, where people want to spend just a few minutes reading (both fiction and nonfiction) instead of getting absorbed in a topic or story.
So, What are Articles Good For?
Lots of things! Articles are great at solving problems, getting someone’s hot take on a subject, being introduced to a subject, or getting a general overview of a topic or a piece of a topic. They’re also excellent for learning fun trivia. I love many of the articles I read, have saved a good deal of them, and I take some pride in feeling as though I give my readers here a good overview of different topics as well as some fun trivia they can enjoy.
However, an article on the American Civil War, for example, isn’t going to make you an expert on the subject. An article might introduce you to some facts you didn’t know, present a different perspective on the topic, or may introduce you to it if, say, you’re not American yourself and know little of its history. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s folly to assume an article or forum post has given you all the information you need to know about a complex subject.
What Do You Think?
Have I missed the mark completely on this one? Have anything to add? I didn't even touch on the phenomenon of branding anything that goes against the narrative as 'misinformation' even if it later comes out as having been true. Discuss below!
