Did you realize children in Hendricks County schools are being forced to learn Arabic numbers? It’s true! Every day, local teachers force children to memorize and use Arabic numbers, no matter what their families may prefer.
Does that upset you? It shouldn’t. You use Arabic numbers all the time and probably don’t realize that’s what they’re called. Those familiar numerals like 1, 2, 3 and the concept of zero were invented in the Arab world during the 10th century. (It’s probably been a while since you learned that, so I’ll give you a pass.)
See how easy it was for me to make something normal and harmless seem inappropriate and offensive? It’s likely you reacted emotionally before your rational thoughts took over. That’s just human nature.
It’s also exactly how people with political objectives use social media. They need to maintain your attention so they can keep feeding information that — well, let’s just say it may not exactly be completely true. It’s why something shows up in my Facebook feed every couple months: posts alleging that schoolkids no longer say the Pledge of Allegiance because their schools don’t want to offend anyone. Utter nonsense. Indiana law requires every public school in the state to recite the Pledge every day and has for years.
The problem? Too many people (especially Boomers) believe everything they see on Facebook or other social media is automatically truthful. The reality is many of those politically tinged posts are generated by shadowy organizations, some located in places that were once behind the Iron Curtain and operated by people eager to sow dissension in these United States.
The people generating those posts aren’t interested in truth or in educating you so you can make a more informed choice. What they want to do is frighten you, make you angry, or disgust you, so you’ll eagerly spread their misinformation by sharing their posts with your own network. And when you do that, they’ll start feeding you even more material. Doesn’t Facebook intervene? Nah, they’re less interested in the veracity of what’s being posted than in keeping you online reading longer, so they can charge advertisers more for access to your eyeballs and emotions.
Don’t believe me? Share the next controversial post you see. Then pay attention to what happens to your feed. If Facebook and the like have become your primary sources of information, you’ll want to keep that in mind.