The Echo Chamber

The echo chamber is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a situation in which people only hear opinions of one type, or opinions that are similar to their own.”

Of course, there’s also that stairwell where sound bounces around and your kids yell incessant nonsense to hear their own echo. So much fun!

Newsflash—listening to someone contradict what you think or believe is not fun. That’s why we avoid them and find people who share our views.

Remember the last time someone disagreed with you and you said, “Well, that’s what I’d expect to hear from someone who drives an import!” After all, why engage in a civil discussion when you can discredit them with witty retorts about their car.

Newsflash number two—social media is making this worse! When’s the last time you read a post that you hated and thought to yourself, that’s an interesting perspective. I wonder how they came to that conclusion. NOPE. You thought they were an idiot and unfollowed them.

This trend should concern us if we want to preserve a society where we respect each other and live in peace and prosperity. The echo chamber of social media is instead helping us devolve into primitive tribalism.

What is also true about us humans is that we like black and white answers. Nuance is for classical musicians and hoity-toity chefs. Living in between the tension of divergent ideas is exhausting and unnatural for the human brain.

Think of the story line of almost all of the Marvel movies these days. It’s a simple us-versus-them trope in which “us” is right and “them” is wrong. This is the bias that most of us fall into, that we are right and they are wrong.

It should be noted that we didn’t all of a sudden become enamoured with our own biases. They were always there—they just didn’t have as devastating an effect on things like xenophobia and vaccine rates. The echo chamber of social media is basically the nuclear arming of good old confirmation bias.

CLAC is known for its us-and-them approach to labour relations. Kind of the opposite to what is happening in the current landscape.

Our collective agreements include language that talks about the mutual well-being of labour and management. This idea of mutual well-being feels very Canadian, doesn’t it?

And yet, it also feels like it’s slipping away from us. If we continue to demonize those who disagree with us from the safety of our smartphones, we are only hastening the disintegration of our peaceful and prosperous society. There is room for us and them outside the echo chamber.