My views on things often differ from those in my social circle. I am often bombarded with article links and videos from people with no words of their own attached. It is very easy to send a link. It takes a bit of effort to form a coherent paragraph expressing a single thought.
I would describe this kind of communication as lazy and not very good. I am sure others experience this often as well. I am wondering if there is a proper term for it, or if it is worth trying to coin a term for it.
Internet Tamarians
Sokath, his eyes uncovered.
Riker, his seat mounted.
I’m not sure what you would call them, but you wouldn’t call them “critical thinkers.”
Because a critical thinker would have their own thoughts about links they wanted to share. They would be willing to discuss why they thought a link was important, and the issues they thought it touched on.
People like this seem to live with very little skepticism. I read a lot of news sources where I feel I can trust them on certain issues and not on others. I can trust the New York Times on a lot of things, but I also know that they tend to cater to a more wealthy audience and that their foreign policy ideology clashes with my own. That doesn’t mean they only peddle warmongering class-war bullshit, although they do produce a lot of that. They do also produce a lot of solid, thoughtful reporting, but it still requires skepticism on my part in reading those articles and not just taking them as “gospel.”
A meme is too short and simple to really get into complex ideas, and as such, memes are good for sharing simple, accessible ideas, but very bad for sharing more complex themes. Once again, lack of skepticism and favoring simple ideas as opposed to understanding the complexity of the world requires more complex understanding of it.
What’s the opposite of “critical thinking”? Biased befuddlesness maybe?
I’m pretty sure the opposite of “critical thinking” is “free thinking”, at least based on all the “free thinkers” I’ve spoken to. I assume it’s short for “free-of-critical-thought… thinking”.
Do you invent all the words you use to describe things?
Language evolves. Doesn’t mean people are getting less intelligent. But thinking that does make you out of touch.
Illiteracy. People are addled by the constant barrage of propaganda, most of it in the form of advertising, its characteristic obsessions with superficial appearances, its constant reliance on lazy stereotypes, its overestimation of the worth of stupid jokes dressed up with a clever veneer, and its insipid pandering to the lowest common prejudices. Intellectual laziness and sloppy thinking based on learned heuristics rather than any kind of logic hace come to dominate our politics, our workplaces, our social lives, our whole culture. It has begun to sink in at an unconscious level and undermines the foundations of our socially constructed worldviews. It is the final victory of the Spectacle, the complete divorce of humanity’s understanding of its own situation from the reality of it.
On the other hand, I like memes. They’re funny.
Instead of communication it’s co-meme-ication.
Idk it’s early
My views on things often differ from those in my social circle. I am often bombarded with article links and videos from people with no words of their own attached.
I have no term for these people (nothing nice, at least) but the term for your social circle might be “echo chamber”, and it seems to be theirs.
You could verb meme. They memed. She is memeing. He will meme.
Another descriptive candidate could perhaps be ‘echoing’. It evokes a rapid repetition without processing. Other uses work nicely too – e.g. “the notes of the student echo the notes of the teacher, not having passed through the minds of either”. Or “they simply echoed the meme they had received”.
I would describe this kind of communication as lazy and not very good.
I personally think that if their meaning is getting through, it’s a perfectly fine mode of communication. Lazy, maybe, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with laziness, wanting to do more with less work is kind of a basic part of the human condition, it only presents a problem if it’s preventing something from getting done. If there is a meme or a short video or something that perfectly sums up what I’m trying to say, why shouldn’t I use that resource instead of trying to rephrase everything into my own words? This isn’t 10th grade English class, you’re not going to fail life for plagiarism because you linked someone to an existing Wikipedia article instead of trying to rewrite it yourself.
Now if their meaning isn’t coming through, that’s of course an issue, but not one that necessarily reflects poorly on them nor on you. People absorb information best in different ways, you’ve almost definitely heard about people having different learning styles, different types of intelligence, and of course everyone has their own life experiences and frame of reference. Different forms of communication will reach different people in different ways. To everyone absorbs meaning from written words well, not everyone can effectively put their thoughts into words, not everyone speaks meme fluently, different experiences can lead people to interpret something in wildly different ways, etc.
Communication is a two-way street, it’s partially on them to tailor their message to their intended audience, but it’s also on the audience to interpret that message, however they may receive it, in a way that makes sense to them, and it’s on both halves to clarify things and make sure the meaning is being effectively delivered and received.
If you’re getting links and videos from people to explain their positions, odds are that they feel that the information you’re looking for is in their, and probably presented in a better way than they would be able to themselves. That’s probably how it was presented to them, and in the way it was presented it made a lot of sense to them, and that’s the best way they know to present that information to you. From there it’s on you to watch or read what they sent you and try to interpret it. If you don’t want to do that, then you’re the one being lazy, and not in the good way. And from there if you need clarification, ask for it about specific parts that aren’t making sense to you. You can’t sum up a 10, 20, 30 minute or hour+ long video in a few sentences and not loose a whole lot of context and details, it’s on you to explain what’s not making sense.
And if your counterpoints aren’t getting through to them, it may be on you to find a different way to explain it, if they’re sending you videos, it may work better to send them videos back than to flood them with paragraphs of text that they may not absorb properly.
In an idealized scenario where everyone is arguing in an attempt to seek the truth rather than to win an argument, I would agree with you. But so often, you have people linking you to whole novels that they themselves haven’t even read. Does it actually contain the information they’re trying to convey? They may tell you that it does, but I’m not convinced that they know it does, and all it’ll do is exhaust you before you get the chance to actually address their point. The few times I’ve tried following through and reading these linked texts, my responses just get met with silence. The rare response you do get is not worth the extra effort required to engage with this kind of comment. At the very least, if you have someone who writes out a response in their own words, you know they’re willing to take the time to actually discuss, and so you return the courtesy.
How are their writing/typing skills?
I love a good link, but it always needs to be accompanied by a bit of an explanation.
It’s simply parroting what they see/read/hear, isn’t it? If they can’t explain their opinion in their own words is it really their opinion? Do they even understand it or the arguments against it?
If they can’t explain their opinion in their own words is it really their opinion?
I don’t think “can’t” is the right assessment here. Less unable and more unwilling.
If a piece of content expresses what I’m trying to say, why use additional effort to reinterpret it into my own phrasing. We’ve all only got so much time+energy, it seems like an unnecessary waste.
At the same time, like OP said, this is a pretty lazy method of communication and thats not always suitable. It also leaves more ambitiguity; just because I interpret a piece of content one way doesn’t mean everyone will.
Sending people memes isn’t the best method of getting your point across, but it does have its place. Especially when time/energy is limited.
Memetic communication
Link dropping
Argument by meme/link
Outsourcing opinions
The term is followers. The people who aren’t able to hold their own opinions are called followers.
Sure, but I was hoping to find something less insulting and more thought provoking.
I feel ya, but what else COULD you describe someone in a single word that doesn’t seem to be able of forming their own thoughts?
I can think of plenty of words, but none of them are nice.
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Sounds similar to echolalia, which I believe is a common autism symptom. A person with echolalia may have difficulty forming complete sentences, and will prefer “recycling” sentences they have heard before.
I wouldn’t call it “lazy” if its legitimately a mental disorder. Laziness implies a lot more agency and choice.
That being said, I’ve found many autistic people are open to communication lessons if offered with kindness. Its just that teaching takes time.
