Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias where people favor information that confirms their existing beliefs or values. While confirmation bias may provide temporary psychological relief to the person trying to prove a point, using false or unproven information for self-comfort is not only unhealthy, but can also prove to be dangerous. For example, if you are suffering from a serious medical condition, and instead of using your doctor’s advice you look to “confirm” that a different, non-proven remedy exists — you may end up in an even worse medical condition as a result. People who only look to re-affirm their personal beliefs miss out on differing views, scientific research results, and expert opinions — all things that almost always lead to better life results. Today, however, finding something on the internet that aligns with your thinking, regardless of whether it’s true, is remarkably easy to do and leading to increasingly more problems.
Looking for “evidence” these days is easy to do
In this very moment you can find information on the internet to “confirm” just about any crazy story or theory that you want. Don’t believe me? Here’s one about a mummy’s curse sinking with the Titanic, and here’s one that claims president Warren G Harding was black, and here’s another story claiming Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in 1969. All of these stories were found on the internet, so they must be true, right? And trust me, the examples given here are not even close to being the most outlandish, but does that even matter anymore? To the person hellbent on proving a point, the simple answer is no, it doesn’t matter at all. Just make a claim, find a webpage, and don’t think for a minute that you might be wrong. Good grief.
There’s “confirmation” around us everywhere — why seek the truth when you can make up your own truth? Sadly, people who rely on doing this kind of “research” falsely think they have the ammunition to shoot down experts who use critical thinking and know far more than them, when in reality the opposite is true. No, you have not become more intelligent or more apt to solve a problem by merely finding one sketchy, unsubstantiated article that seems to support what you want to hear — that’s not research, and the “findings” from an unsupported study or claim found somewhere on the internet is hardly credible.
Sadly, there is an entire cottage industry building before our very eyes that specialize in wild stories, lies, and other conspiratorial claims. These websites exist solely to make money, and are not in any way legitimate. Still, as increasingly more people regularly interface with technology and long to be their own experts, these websites get a lot of clicks — and a lot of revenue as a result, which only perpetuates the model of deceit and more phony news. In fact, no claim is ever too crazy, and often the more wild the story, the more clicks, and more revenue as a result. With nobody safeguarding the internet, you can find just about any story you can think of — if you don’t believe me, just throw something crazy out there and see what pops.
Stepping back and taking a macro-view of things, we appear to be giving true experts less credit by the day, and engaging in more efforts regularly to find our own “expertise.” This is a very unwise and unhealthy way to acquire and use information, but if the goal is to simply confirm your own theory, or, worse yet, win an argument, then wild stories on the internet are your way to go.
Final thoughts
Before the internet it was fairly difficult to find information to “confirm” wild beliefs beyond picking up a tabloid magazine at the grocery store. Today things are very different, and it is easy to find news that is anything but credible. The internet is full of misinformation, and more is added each day, making it challenging to sort through it all. Still, it is important to rely on credible sources, and listen to experts whenever possible.
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