The land of extreme extremes

In my experience being ldquonormalrdquo or having a balanced opinion on social media is wasted Let me explain For example if you are a fashion creator mdash you have to either be skinny fitting the accepted view of beauty or you need to be plussized to really make an impression And if you are an opinion maker mdash I am at a loss as to why these exist as a journalist I am so used to giving facts to help the reader make informed decisions mdash then you have to take an extreme side Either be a Rightwinger or be left or Left liberalThere no longer exists a middle pathLast weekend when I decided to write a post on my thoughts about Dhurandhar I had decided to be as honest and noncontroversial as I could be Because in the end itrsquos just a movie and I just a layman watching I thought there was nothing problematic about the movie and any flaws I noticed I put across honestly The response to the post was good by all standards but the usually woke voices who believed the film was working on ldquoinciting haterdquo didnrsquot comment or respond to my post I donrsquot feel itrsquos because they are intimidated by me It could be because when faced with a balanced and notfrothingatthemouth view they hadnothing to sayIn a study done by Binghamton University State University of New York called Generation and influence of eccentric ideas on social networks researchers said that more eccentric opinions can be necessary to maintain popularity among those who share such beliefs even if the topic of discussion is not traditionally extreme What they mean is that itrsquos not just creators who need to make extreme content to get noticed but social media users also only consume extreme views as it helps them form a stronger opinionItrsquos mindboggling What happened to nuanced thinking What happened to both sides of the story What happened to a regulated nervous systemItrsquos not just about opinions Even in terms of regular lifestyle content mdash either you need to match the accepted views on beauty style presentation and aesthetic or you need to be far removed from it mdash on the other extreme No wonder ldquocringerdquo is a content genre that rakes in the views So where does a regular creator and consumer goI find this harmful and dangerous to society as a whole We have become less tolerant of everything around us mdash people situations and events But we have also become closed to any opinion that doesnrsquot match our own in effect restricting our own growth We have become dependent on the creators who feed us extreme views to help shape our opinionWhen I started reading up about it I came across the term The ldquoEcho Chamberrdquo effect It says that algorithms prioritise engagement over accuracy and hence they amplify divisive content This leads to the making of ldquoecho chambersrdquo where users are primarily exposed to information that validates their preexisting beliefs and they are also isolated from opposing viewsI want us to break the door of this echo chamber and imagine we lived in a world where we got a lot of facts and we got a few interesting and legit people to tell us what they thought and in the end we made our own decision I know that sounds radical in the world that we live but hey arenrsquot we the main character of our own livesAs users why donrsquot we do a deep cleanse of our feeds and follow different kinds of people mdash some that validate our opinion and some that challenge them And as creators why donrsquot we tone down the outrage and focus on facts and solutions It may reduce our engagement just a bit but it will help us sleep better at nightJust remember in a world where everyone is poised to attack one another being balanced tolerant and open to anotherrsquos opinion is a flexSee you next weekRanting and raving about all thatrsquos trending on social media Aastha Atray Banan is an author creator podcaster and the Editor of your favourite weekend read Sunday midday She posts at aasthaatray on InstagramSend your feedback tomailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper