Back in the early 2000s, the innovation and invention of technology such as social media have changed the world completely; it allowed us to perceive and gather information easily just by browsing the web, such as from internet search engines, online libraries, and also it enables us to connect with other individuals across the globe by using different social apps. Now in the modern days, our reliance on social media has become severe than before, we use and rely on it for multiple purposes, gathering information for school, for work, checking what is happening in the world, or even for entertainment. But have you ever asked yourself, is the information that is displayed on our screens real? Do we often look at the screen, thinking everything it shows is the perception of the real world? The reliance of social media revisits one of the famous philosophies in the ancient world, Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and the parallels can be drawn between the users interacting within social media.
Over 2400 years ago, in Ancient Greece, a great Athenian philosopher, Plato, wrote his Allegory of the Cave in his seventh book of The Republic, it is considered as one of the greatest western philosophies in the ancient world. The allegory is a dialogue between Plato’s brother, Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, the purpose of this philosophy is to demonstrate Plato’s idea of human nature, their sense of reality, knowledge, truth and the distinction between appearance and reality.
The Allegory of the Cave begins with Socrates describing a group of prisoners shackled and chained inside a dark cave, they have been in the cave since birth, and they cannot see anything else other than a stone wall in front of them. There is a fire behind the prisoners, which provides light for them and enables them to see the shadows on the stone wall. Since the prisoners never encounter the outside world, they automatically start to guess and name whenever they see a shadow pass by the cave, and assume that the shadows shown on the wall are real and the shadows become their perception about the world, and the prisoners take great pride in their sophistication and wisdom about the world; despite they are just shadows in reality. One day, one of the prisoners got the chance to escape the cave. As he stepped away from the cave, he was overwhelmed by the sun's brightness; he cannot adjust to the sunlight at first; however, he eventually got used to it and encountered the reality, what the world actually looked like and realized everything he believed in was fake. When he goes back to the cave, telling his peers about what he saw, his peers felt the prisoner was being ridiculous and rejected his acknowledgement about the outside world.
Although Plato wrote this allegory over two thousand years ago, his philosophy reflects our perception of reality, and our reliance on social media in today's world. Social media is comparable to Plato’s cave, despite the amount of information that is provided by social media and the benefit of getting the information in mere seconds from numerous sources, the images and the information it provides does not represent the reality, the real world; instead, they are merely shadows, the shadows the prisoners thought it is the real world. They are slowly corrupting our perception of reality- limiting humanity’s access to real knowledge, encouraging us to seek to wrong solutions, and make us to transfixed and rely on the screens in front of us and accept the false information presented within social media groups and well- known individuals, such as celebrities and political figures. Following this false perception can lead us to think we have attained knowledge and lead us to believe many false and dangerous beliefs that might affect our lives.
There are plenty of examples that embody Plato’s philosophy of The Allegory of the Cave; the example I selected will be the COVID-19 pandemic that has been affecting the whole globe since the beginning of the year 2020. Back in March, when citizens were all stuck at home for self-quarantine, most of us spent our time gluing ourselves to our computers, phones, and TVs for entertainment, and since we cannot go outside, we rely on social media to see what is happening globally and find out how to protect ourselves from the pandemic. Every day, social media shows us what recent discoveries or updates about the virus, but the information differs from website to website. Most of the time we cannot analyze nor criticize the information on social media, we usually just entrap ourselves with the false perception it has given us, thinking that perception is true.
For example, you may have seen news articles or watched videos on social platforms; in America, the previous president, Donald Trump, told and suggested to his citizens that consuming disinfectants may treat the coronavirus, without any proof or evidence from medical professionals. If Individuals actually went to see original studies or have common sense, they would’ve known the disinfectants are lethal if it is consumed, however, because they rely on social media, and president’s advice, they believed they attain the knowledge of curing the virus and proceed to do something unthinkable and risk their lives, as the news has proven that the poison control outline has received hundreds of calls of individuals asking if disinfectant actually can counter the coronavirus after Trump openly stated ingesting disinfectant is a good idea. (Elliot, 2020) and the consumption has surged to the point a couple in Arizona actually tried curing themselves with chloroquine phosphate, which unfortunately the man passed away by lethal poisoning. (Elliot, 2020) Or another example, the prominent and unfounded theories of the coronavirus was created in the Wuhan government lab (Crary, Forliti, Moulson, 2020); there is zero evidence to prove this claim; in reality, it is just a zoonotic infection, yet rumours on social media have spread this mindset to many individuals, which caused chaos and discrimination towards the Chinese.
In conclusion, although Plato's philosophy was written many years ago, his lesson of reality is something we should reflect on ourselves. Social media is full of sources; however, it is filled with false information by an abundance of experts or well-known individuals instead of the dearth of truth, just like the shadows in the cave. We should not believe everything we see on social media- regardless of how reliable the source seems to be; and seek for actual knowledge, learning the true perception of the world.
Bibliography
Plato, The Allegory of the Cave . Translated by Thomas Sheehan, web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf.
David Crary, Amy Forliti and Geir Moulson. “Wuhan Lab Head Calls Virus Leak Claims 'Pure Fabrication'.” Coronavirus, CTV News, 24 May 2020, www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/wuhan-lab-head-calls-virus-leak-claims-pure-fabrication-1.4952185.
Elliott, Josh K. “Don't Trust Trump's Coronavirus 'Cure,' Says Widow of Man Poisoned by Chloroquine.” Global News, Global News, 26 Mar. 2020, globalnews.ca/news/6723614/coronavirus-chloroquine-donald-trump/.
Elliott, Josh K. “Poison Control Calls Spike after Trump Talks of Disinfectant to Fight Coronavirus.” Global News, Global News, 27 Apr. 2020, globalnews.ca/news/6871768/coronavirus-donald-trump-disinfectant-poison/.