I’m from Central Montana and spent most of my childhood growing up in a primarily conservative state. Yet, I’m from an almost entirely liberal home, so having conversations with classmates, neighbors, and even friends can be tricky when offering up new viewpoints. Anyone who holds a strong opinion about something can remember a time when their opinion or belief was met with strong and sometimes unnecessarily heightened aggression, regardless of whether it was based in fact. So how can you have discussions with those who don’t want to hear what you have to say? By being prepared to question and consider what you yourself think. If either party is resistant, a productive discussion can’t take place. If neither party is in a place to have their ideas debated, they’ll shut down.

Social media is the first thing people go to when struggling with a need to be heard. Which makes sense, it’s a great tool for spreading information, but it’s also the number one cause of spreading misinformation. Everything online is fast. When you see something cool, you share it. When you see something offensive you comment on it. When you read something that you can’t believe, you negate it. With so many questionable sources and articles, it can be hard to discern the facts from the clutter.

My mother has been going to local meetings for women to discuss politics and she tells me that the women that come to these meetings are very well informed, but then she goes to work and says that others reach out to her expressing their uncertainty. They aren’t sure what to believe. They discuss how much information there is and how difficult it is to find reliable sources. This is one of the areas where we as consumers of media have the ability to empower those around us who don’t know where to go for reliable information.

We need to stop spreading news through meme’s. Meme’s are not a source of news or at least not a fully reliable one. They are quick blurbs designed to catch the eye of someone in order to evoke snap reactions in viewers. Even legitimate news sources use this tactic to get people to read on, but most people don’t read the article before spreading what I like to call, “the first response.”

An emotional reaction to something you see, with an immediate reposting in order to share a validating opinion with an audience of people quick to agree with you. I can’t express the number of times someone has posted a picture that makes a claim containing a fraction of the scope of the issue, in one or two lines of text. When we spread information this way, we are only informing our friends and family of the information that’s most impactful or meaningful to us. This robs other onlookers of the full picture, creating an information gap. If this was a reliable form of information acquisition, we wouldn’t need journalists or newspapers.

So if you see someone that uses this as a main form of communication, it can be helpful to provide them with sources to validate a claim further or direct those viewing to more in-depth information. I even went so far as to point out to an old classmate of mine that he had the power to inform properly and yet he elected not to exercise this power. We had a long discussion about what reliable sources were and how to find them. Though he was very resistant throughout our dialogue, other peers added to the conversation, resulting in a shift of mindset from those I had not expected. This is one of the main reasons being active online can be a good thing, but also a reason I don’t have many conversations of this nature online.

The nature of online communication is miscommunication because when you’re trying to really connect with another person, the barrier of technology is often unbridgeable. Things intended to inform can come across as antagonistic of another’s beliefs and this makes open discussion a difficult thing to accomplish, so if you intend to initiate an interconnection, I encourage you to do it face to face. With this approach, I've had many successful conversations and walked away with much more insight and perspective. It pays to be armed with the facts and with a genuine desire to understand.

But why should we have discussions of this nature?

We should have them because it’s essential that we break down the stigma that if you believe one thing, you have to draw a line in the sand to defend it. It’s necessary because in order for people to find common ground, we need to understand the root of the reason people believe something. Finally, it’s important because if we begin to ask questions and remain curious rather than making judgments; the separation between what we don’t understand and what we come to understand will begin to shrink.

For me it always helps to keep in mind, that the majority of people on either side of the social or political spectrum believe that they are good people and attempt to do what they believe is right. There are obvious exceptions that come to mind, but lets not forget that every one of us is both a collection of ideals and values our parents have instilled, blended with an observation of the world as it changes around us.

Having conversations that test the boundaries of what we believe is the basis for any major change.