The Social Media Cacophony || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 19.06.2022, Greater Noida  Context:   ~ How does the constant influx of information on social media contribute to the sense of "cacophony" in our lives? ~ In what ways can the overwhelming noise on social media impact mental health and well-being? ~ Have you noticed any specific strategies or habits that help mitigate the negative effects of social media cacophony? ~ What role does social media play in shaping societal opinions and influencing public discourse amid the cacophony? ~ How can individuals strike a balance between staying informed through social media and avoiding the detrimental effects of information overload?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 (soft music)

00:02 - In that light, you sometimes see, right,

00:06 that because there isn't such a wide access,

00:11 easy access to information,

00:16 easily available today online digitally

00:20 where people can become experts very quickly

00:23 or claim to be experts very quickly on social media.

00:27 There's also the flip to that

00:30 is an oversimplification of things

00:32 that may be very childish, as you said.

00:37 While there's a beauty in being able to simplify, right,

00:41 in one way of looking at it

00:42 where the beauty of many of our rishis and our saints

00:46 was that they can expound on one single subject

00:49 as in a long, long exposition,

00:53 like say our scriptures, like Upanishads and the Gita,

00:57 and at the same time, they can take the biggest subject

01:00 and dumb it down to a aphorism, like a yoga sutra maybe.

01:04 That while that is true expertise,

01:06 today's expertise seems to be in a tweet.

01:09 You can prove that, you can show that you are,

01:12 I know what I'm talking about,

01:13 but I show the whole world that I'm doing this

01:16 by just a tweet or a post.

01:18 In that era, in such an era,

01:21 what do you think is the source of that problem?

01:23 Do you think it's an overthinking of things?

01:26 Do you think it's an oversimplification of things?

01:29 - No, it's not oversimplification.

01:30 There's difference between

01:32 simplifying and reducing.

01:37 Being simple is one thing,

01:42 being reductionist is another thing.

01:45 Being simple is one thing,

01:49 and lacking perspective,

01:51 missing the bigger picture is just another thing.

01:55 The room might be very big,

02:00 but I look at it through a keyhole.

02:03 And when you look at something through a keyhole,

02:08 it can very well be condensed in a tweet.

02:10 160 characters, 240 characters,

02:15 because that's a keyhole perspective.

02:17 You don't anyway know the bigger picture.

02:20 You don't anyway know anything

02:22 that would occupy anything more than 250 characters.

02:26 It's not that you are being precise.

02:29 250 characters is the widest expanse

02:35 of your knowledge, your perspective, your insight.

02:37 You do not know anything more than the tweet.

02:40 But Twitter helps,

02:44 because you could say, you know, I know so much.

02:47 It's just that I'm presenting

02:50 the very summary of my wide range of ideas.

02:53 Most people who tweet anyway

02:56 do not have any wide range of ideas.

02:58 Had it been a proper blogging platform,

03:03 not just micro blogging,

03:04 it would have become difficult for people,

03:09 because how would you

03:11 write a 10,000 word essay on something?

03:16 You really have no idea of.

03:18 So,

03:21 people are not really being cryptic on Twitter.

03:24 They are being themselves.

03:26 Little, little.

03:29 We are little people, and it's littleness

03:32 that we display on Twitter in 140 characters.

03:42 The European Renaissance gave us

03:46 the idea of freedom,

03:51 including the freedom of expression,

03:55 which is a beautiful thing in itself,

03:59 except that it is not a complete idea.

04:02 Freedom of expression is always secondary

04:12 to the freedom of mind.

04:13 First of all, do you have the freedom of mind

04:19 to qualify for freedom of expression?

04:24 Now, the mind is rotten.

04:29 The mind is bigoted.

04:32 The mind is so narrow,

04:36 confused,

04:42 and angry and violent,

04:43 and cunning to boot.

04:48 And what it's been given is the freedom of expression.

04:54 What will you get?

04:57 And because the mind is cunning,

05:00 it won't say, "I am expressing my ignorance."

05:07 It will cunningly say, "I am expressing my expertise."

05:12 A doctor is precise, is he not?

05:21 You look at the prescriptions, laconic.

05:27 Just because a specialist is precise,

05:36 that does not mean that everything that is scantily worded

05:41 denotes expertise.

05:44 The Brahma Sutras are extremely concise.

05:52 That does not mean that every idiot who can utter only two words

05:58 becomes a Brahmanohar.

06:03 But that's how the world is operating. Everybody is a wannabe expert.

06:08 The very respect for depth,

06:12 forget about wisdom, even deep knowledge has receded so much.

06:17 Today's demigods and celebrities are not people with knowledge.

06:28 We in fact do not even know of subject matter experts.

06:33 Today's celebrities are loudmouths.

06:38 Those who bark on everything under the sun or beyond the sun.

06:46 You bring up any topic

06:51 and you have an entire community of people like that.

06:57 You have a community of people across the globe

07:00 who will immediately present themselves as specialists on that topic.

07:05 And they have become the thought leaders of this era.

07:10 They are the ones who are shaping even results of elections.

07:16 Governments are rising and falling

07:21 based on the beck and call of ignorance.

07:26 It indeed is a dangerous situation.

07:30 The explosive emergence of social media,

07:38 especially over the last 5-6 years,

07:42 may have had its immediate and material benefits.

07:49 But the challenges it has brought in terms of giving

07:56 a loud and undeserved voice

08:02 to worthless people

08:08 is a huge damage we have suffered.

08:17 And somehow the nature of life is such that

08:21 the ones who know very little

08:25 are the ones most eager to express themselves.

08:30 Wisdom prefers quietness and silence many a times.

08:37 Ignorance is so insecure, it wants to shout from the rooftop.

08:45 The End

08:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]

08:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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