Daily Archives: November 11, 2009

Information Credibility

I have to laugh every time I hear someone say “You believe something just because you read it on the internet?”. Please fill me in on exactly where the sources of information exist that are 100% credible. You believe something just because you saw it on CNN or Fox news or read it in a newspaper? You believe something just because a doctor said so? Let me fill you in on something. Information is gathered, filtered, manipulated and delivered by human beings. Human being have all sorts of motivations and agendas and filters which alter the way they process information in these ways. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what the delivery vehicle is for that information. I will say however that I trust what I read on the internet more so than most any other source and here’s why. Politicians and big corporations have an easy time manipulating information that comes to us through traditional media outlets such as newspapers and television. And in many cases this same could be true of many web sites. But the net is the wild west of information and most of it is uncontrolled by these entities and is therefore unbiased and unhindered from corporate and political tampering. What this all boils down to again is who do you trust? Who or what is responsible for the information you are receiving? Our ability to trust is something we develop as children. What information did our parents feed us? Did we trust it or not? Why or why not? It’s in these very questions that we can begin to understand how we process the information we receive as adults. It’s a ‘listener beware, viewer beware and reader beware’ world.