Dear Editor:
In this time of social and physical distancing, we rely on social media and other media to be our primary source of contact with others. When we listen to and engage with people who think like us and sound like us, we enter echo chambers where we hear only our own voice and voices that agree with us repeated and amplified. We are unlikely to hear other voices.
In those moments when we do hear views different than our own, they are expressed not by flesh and blood people, but through articles, sound bites and memes curated by people from our echo chamber.
Before COVID-19, walking on the street, in coffee shops, and fast food places, I would hear a variety of voices. People talking about things I had never experienced, or speaking from a perspective I had never thought of. These flesh-and-blood people thought differently than I did. They were not a sound-bite, not a meme, not a punch line – they were real people with views that challenged mine.
Hearing their voices enriched my life, pulled me out of my echo chamber of talking with people who sound and think like me.
The echo chambers we presently live and function in are not good for social discourse or for community building. We need to hear views we disagree with. Those who disagree with us have views which if expressed in a civil manner need to be heard. Hearing the voices of flesh and blood people who think differently than we do is good for us and individuals and important for our well-being as a community.
I hope, even in the midst of COVID-19, that we can find ways to get out of the echo chambers in which we presently live.
Peter Bush,
Fergus