The internet is killing us. We do not need to tell you how. Explore it on your own. Teachers are to supplement this Ingredient to our downfall, with credible information about how modern communication tools are playing on the worst of human instincts. Misinformation is being spread across the internet like wildfire - and we cannot tell what is real and what is fake, and it is causing us to question our goodness, believe the worst in each other, and to hate each other like never before. The Internet for the first time ever in our history hands a microphone and provides an audience to the most sick, hurt, and disturbed people among us, as well as our known enemies.  It enables those who wish to cause harm to do just that. To divide people along lines of class or politics, with extreme and sensationalized  speech, where anger, outrage and self-righteousness help turn once moderate people of tolerance for things and people who are not like us, down rabbit holes, and unsuspectingly into echo chambers which cause  hatred of others.  

We do provide some of the most credible resources that we have found.

Handout Resource: Article  “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been so Uniquely Stupid,” by Jonathan Haidt

“Research showed that posts that trigger emotions – especially anger at out-groups – are the most likely to be shared.”

“Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories. Social media has weakened all three.”

“[Social media users] became more adept at putting on performances and managing their personal brand – activities… that do not deepen friendships in the way that a private phone conversation will.”

“One of the engineers at Twitter who had worked on the ‘Retweet’ button later revealed that he regretted his contribution because it had made Twitter a nastier place … ‘We might have just handed a 4-year-old a loaded weapon.’”

“It was just this kind of twitchy and explosive spread of anger that James Madison had tried to protect us from as he was drafting the U.S. Constitution … [He] knew that democracy had an Achilles’ heel because it depended on the collective judgment of the people, and democratic communities are subject to ‘the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions.’ … The tech companies that enhanced virality … brought us deep into Madison’s nightmare.”

“Social media has both magnified and weaponized the frivolous.”

“Recent academic studies suggest that social media is indeed corrosive to trust in governments, news media, and people and institutions in general.”

“[Social media] has unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together.”

“being online did not make most people more aggressive or hostile; rather, it allowed a small number of aggressive people to attack a much larger set of victims.”

“When our public square is governed by mob dynamics unrestrained by due process, we don’t get justice… we get a society that ignores context, proportionality…”

“Twitter can overpower all the newspapers in the country…so truth cannot achieve widespread adherence.”

‘firehose of falsehood’ tactic pioneered by Russian disinformation programs  keep Americans confused, disoriented, and angry … Now, … artificial intelligence is close to enabling the limitless spread of highly believable disinformation.” 

“ it’s the continual chipping-away of trust … a democracy depends on widely internalized acceptance of the legitimacy of rules, norms, and institutions … when citizens lose trust in elected leaders, health authorities, the courts, the police, universities, and the integrity of elections..every election becomes a life-and-death struggle to save the country from the other side.”

“We are immersed in an ongoing conflict: an Information World War in which state actors, terrorists, and ideological extremists sow discord and erode shared reality” (Social Media) 

Resources : Article Jon Haidt,  Why The Last Ten Years of American Life has been so Stupid! 

Article, Richard Gingras, www.gettingalong.com

Book, Chaos Machine, Max Fischer