Whether it is a guide for the beginners, or written by a beginner is open to interpretation.
The biggest craving humans have, is for stories. Since the time immemorial we have been creating and consuming them. Yuval Noah Harari would tell you that this is one of the pillar on which human civilization is built. I would tell you, it is certainly the fundamental on which the social media is built. It was our propensity to create and consume stories that has made the social media the behemoth that it is today.
Stories are good - they entertain, they educate, and they help in making sense of the world. Our brain is designed to string together the information that we come across and turns it in to a stories which is easy for us to understand and memorize. If we see a wet umbrella and shoe-marks on the floor, our brain puts them together to tell us that a person walked in, from the rain. It is a fair assumption to make and most likely to be true. But, what if someone wants you to believe so, and have staged the scene? You just fell in the narrative trap.
Fine. That was oversimplified. But the theory holds. Lets unpack!
It’s a wild wild world!
We live extremely complex lives in an inconceivably complex world. At any given moment, uncountable variables are affecting practically everything that is happening around us. Our brain is not equipped to factor for all of them, but it is very well equipped to defend us against them. It does so by building narratives. Narratives are short stories, which helps us make sense of the world we live in. They are straight line relational explanation in terms of cause and effect for every event. Irrespective of how good, bad or complex a situation we find ourselves in; our anxiety about them start calming, if we could somehow draw out a reason for us being in that situation.
Narratives are our first line of defence against the complexities of the world.
But what if someone starts using them against us?
We are curious creature and we want to learn about things. When we come across an information, we want to make sense of it. Narratives are how we do it. But what if those narratives are not entirely true?
More complex the situation, more unlikely that narratives about them are completely true.
We live in the world, where we are being bombarded by narratives from everywhere. Social media has made us forever connected with a lot of world events which we on our own understand too little of. Our brain desperately seeks help to makes sense of all the information we are getting exposed to. This desperation gets exploited by narrative builders.
Who are narrative builders?
Short answer. Everyone.
It is our natural tendency to find comfort in number. We want to be a part of a group which is aligned on most things. Hence, we actively work towards either finding agreeable people or making people agree.
But for some, it is about more than mere comfort. Ideologues, leaders, preachers, brands and businesses - for them people believing in their narratives is a path to success. If a brand sells no sugar dessert, it wants everyone to believe that all their health trouble is because of eating sugar. If a leader wants to build a communist system, they want you to believe that capitalism is absolute evil and if an ideologue wants you to fight for their cause, they want to believe everyone else is your enemy.
In the age of social media, they are all competing with their narratives in public - first, for your attention; then, for your subscription and finally, for your action.
Tell me a good story.
Do the same information sound entirely different when offered with a narrative? Are we predisposed to fall for some narrative over others? Can narrative alone change our opinion of the same event?
Yes. If it is a good story.
In a 2003 for a research, two groups where given information about sunbed tanning and its relationship with skin cancer. One group was presented with just the statistical information, while the other with a narrative of a woman using sunbed and then getting skin cancer. Those presented with the narrative showed much more intent to change tanning behavior than those with statistical information.1
Narratives are way more powerful than plain information in influencing our thinking and behavior.
There are some dominant social narratives, that we strongly come to believe in. They have been told to us over time by every institution that make our society - family, friends, community, religion, governments, mass media, cultural groups and now social media. There are often about how people, society, life etc. are ought to be. These narratives greatly influence us and have much power over us.
One of the strongest dominant social narrative is The Preserve Life Narrative. Our strong belief that life is sacred and must be preserved at any cost drives a lot of secondary belief and behavior that we show. During Covid, the narrative of massive threat to life made it acceptable to us - people and governments - the complete shutdown of economy which otherwise would be unconceivable.
On individual level, preserve life narrative, works as well. We find it completely unacceptable when presented with graphic narrative of a life lost, but fail to even register the same information about loss of life given as statistical information. Media exploit it time and again to ensure which crisis we react to and which while reported goes unnoticed.
A twist of narrative, one on occasion makes one gun wielding group dreaded terrorist and on another, valiant revolutionaries. A company becomes a bloodsucking capitalist empire, or world changing technological pioneers, based on how we are introduced to it. We are told the childhood hardship of a rape convict and perverted actions of a jailed whistleblower. We buy in to the most of these narratives, because it helps us make sense of what has happened. It gives us a good story and sense of comfort in knowing why things are the way they are.
Find the story, you are not being told.
Its is easy to read the provided narrative, believe it and bring closure. But then you just have one story and that is not complete.
Paul Dolan and Amanda Henwood of London School of Economy and Political Science, provide us with a five step framework to avoid falling in the narrative trap in decision making - ABCDE. This can also be adapted in our regular interaction with narratives we come across on the internet.
A - Acceptance
The first step is to accept that we are creature of our emotions and there are certain narratives which pushes the button for us. Once we have accepted our susceptibility to certain narratives, we are more likely to spot them and manage our emotional response to them better.
B - Balancing
Stories provide comfort. But it can be false comfort. When you are exposed to one narrative, explore others. Specially if the narrative you are exposed to, is too comfortable and agreeable for you. Dominant narratives mostly push status-quoist (for you) thoughts so counter narrative are often required to challenge them.
C - Checklist
This might sound a little odd to have a checklist for news or social media narratives, but it work because it saves you from cherry picking. Have a list of parameters that you must look for before coming to a conclusion about any event. If the narrative presented to you doesn’t include all of them, then you are in a trap. Go looking for the missing parameters.
D - Diversity
Bring a set of diversity to our inherent view and values. There are diverse believes and values systems that exist in the world. It helps to be cognizant of them and broaden our perspective when looking at narratives, specially from different parts of the world. While the narrative might completely align with your value system (because it probably is designed to appeal to you), find diverse set of values which this narrative might not sit well with.
E - Evaluation
Narratives are good, but evidence is better. Evaluate the narrative against evidence that you have gathered in earlier three steps - balancing, checklist and diversity. Find out what has not been told and use that to come up with your own opinion about the event.
The information deluge will not stop. The line between news and narrative will get blurrier with time. It is our responsibility to check the narratives.
This post is primer on topic which obviously is much larger. If it interests you much, do read upon narrative fallacies and cognitive biases. I will also try to include them in future posts.
Please share your feedback and suggestions on what would you like to read on the percolator.
Greene, K. and Brinn, L.S., 2003. Messages influencing college women's tanning bed use: Statistical versus narrative evidence format and a self-assessment to increase perceived susceptibility. Journal of health communication, 8(5), pp.443-461.