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
~~~~~
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
~~~~~
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
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]