For centuries, societies have relied on the spoken word to spread information, often in hopes of furthering initiatives, whether for political campaigns or social reform. It has not only proven to be effective in delivering information, but is also extremely important in building community networks. Therefore, students on campus will inevitably participate in discussing information, whether scientific, political or social. As someone who actively engages in such mechanisms of discussion, I have begun to notice an increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating on campus. While the spread of misinformation in our community is often unintentional, it is worth considering alternate ways of minimizing such confusion. Thus, to help promote the distribution of more accurate information, students should try to be more mindful of what information they are delivering and how they are presenting it, as their tone of voices can falsely imply “fact” when they really mean “opinion.”
On campus, students tend to hear information and parrot it back, repeating an interesting fact or surprising figure to another person. Yet, in this word-of-mouth system of passing along information, some key details get lost. Perhaps the most crucial component in analyzing why this phenomenon happens can be illustrated from a ubiquitous game we all played in elementary school: Telephone. What started out as “unicorns tend to be related to pink cotton candy” might eventually end up as “unicorns cause cotton candy to turn pink” because we simply cannot remember every exact detail. Then, we simply say something that “feels about right.”
A common marketing strategy in business is relying heavily on daily, spoken interactions to build brand image. However, while this method is effective in building brand awareness, this concept should not be applied to politics, science, academia or any other data that relies on accuracy and precision. Likewise, the pitch and tones of the presenter’s voice can also influence the way the listener perceives the information. In fact, an article on Forbes showed that 62% of people tend to respond more quickly to information presented in a positive way and accept it as true. While it may seem obvious that a positive tone makes the information introduced sound constructive and factually correct, it plays a deeper role in what we internalize as correct. In an article published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the study claims that social presence — a theory that argues that people process information differently based on the format it is presented in, especially the change in psychological perception when other people are present — played a major role in the spread of information on COVID-19 in 2020. This research effectively demonstrates how people can perceive information differently when they receive it verbally versus reading it from an article or on social media. On campus, I have noticed a pattern of students voicing their opinions as if they were facts — I certainly have been guilty of making this fallacy as well. Additionally, students may also occasionally exaggerate the truth to entertain the listener, further perpetuating this chain of inaccuracy and misinformation. As a result, people may mistakenly confuse their peers’ opinions for what is factually correct and pass that information to the next person.
The last thing I want to do is to blame people for spreading inaccurate information — it’s not really anyone’s fault and we certainly should not be pointing fingers. Instead, I encourage people to conduct a quick temperature check every so often: “Is what I’m saying my opinion or a fact?” and present the information accordingly. Self- awareness is, in my opinion, the best way to create positive change, and we can do that together one sentence at a time.
