Do I have the full picture?
I’m sure every person has heard the phrase “there are two sides to every story.” For a long time I believed that, but then one day I heard someone say that there are actually three sides to every story: one person’s side, the other person’s side, and the actual truth. With the way social media is laid out for us, it is so easy to pick one side of an event or topic without hearing what the other side has to say. We press “like” on a video that sides with our opinion or point of view and the algorithm sends us even more videos that coincide with our view points. It’s very rare that someone will go out of their way to research more information about the topic. I’m not shaming anyone for not doing this because I too am guilty of not checking my facts.
In this week's module we watched the Youtube video about the confrontation between Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann and it took me back to when I first saw that viral video on twitter. I was one of the many people that was upset with Nick Sandmann, the way I viewed the video was that Sandmann was being an instigator and was being disrespectful towards Phillips. Now that I heard his side of the story, I’m not so sure my original view point stands. It might have been my stereotypes that were guiding my thinking. I don’t know if Phillips and Sandmann were telling the complete truth, but I think we should listen to all sides of an event or story before we so quickly draw conclusions.
Hi Lili! I enjoyed reading your blog and I completely agree with you. On social media for example I always get one side of a story and after a while the algorithm will show me another side. It has happened to me, where I agree with one side of the story and after seeing the other side it changes my opinion and in all honesty we do not know what actually happened. We do not get the whole story on social media so it is hard to decide who to believe. I also agree with you on the confrontation between Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann video. I think we made a decision after hearing one side and did not take the time to hear the other side and like you stated I also do not take the time and do my research. I just go off of what they say and agree with them.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I totally relate to just simply agreeing with what's put on social media and not questioning it. I like how we both agree that we should be better when it comes to that.
DeleteHi Lili! I really enjoyed reading your blog, and I 100% agree with you. Many people in this world only listen to what they believe and not the other side. People mainly do this because of their beliefs or culture, but it's wrong. To understand the full picture, we have to understand every single side of the story. We don't have to 100% agree with it, but we need to understand where the other side is coming from, and why they believe what they believe. Social media has sucked a lot of truth out of all of us. We put on this face mask and make people believe this is who we truly are, but in reality, we're the complete opposite. At the end of the day, can we really believe everything on social media . . . no. And it sucks that it has come to this because a lot of our news outlets are though social media. Like you said, there are three parts to every story, and I think that's an amazing way to put it. I enjoyed reading your blog. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Raegan! I appreciate your comment and what you thought about my blog post. I like how you said that we don't have to 100% agree with people's actions but it's important to understand it.
DeleteHi Lili, I appreciate how the phrase you referenced was illustrated by the picture that you posted with your response. It reminded me of the movie "Hoodwinked" where each character tells their story and as they do it clears up points of confusion in other stories until the audience has the full picture. I had not seen the Phillips / Sandmann video before. I have a vague memory of the incident but I don't remember having any emotional reaction at the time. I found the video hard to watch because it felt like the chaotic energy of the different groups was so disconnected. I seemed like none of the groups understood what the others were doing there, and nothing productive was happening to further any kind of understanding or at least diffusion of the situation.
ReplyDeleteHey Carelyn! I really enjoyed reading your comment. I have never seen "Hoodwinked" but I will make sure to put it on my watch list. Also, I agree when you said the Phillips/Sandmann video felt chaotic. I feel like the two groups didn't try to understand each other and only saw their differences.
DeleteHi Lili, I really enjoyed reading your blog this week. I have never heard of the idea of the three sides to every story, however, I actually really like that idea. The idea that there is your side, their side, and the actual truth itself sets up a unique interest. Your example of social media is great because in today's society we fall for things that we might agree or align with our opinion in which we hit that one little button that creates more and more content but in reality we don't check to verify if it is reliable. For example during Covid 19 we have seen many opinions about whether vaccinations are harmful or not. Most people make an opinion based on what someone else said or what you believe in but we don't often listen to the actual truth and that can have positive or negative consequences depending on how you look at it.
ReplyDeleteHi Ms.Hannah! I'm glad you enjoyed my blog post. I like the point you made about how this related to the COVID Vaccinations. Everyone has their reasoning on if they want to get it or not, I just wish people would back it up with facts from reliable resources, not form an opinion from someone else like you said.
DeleteHi Lili! I really enjoyed this post. I loved your comment about there being three sides to a story. I am also guilty of not checking my facts, and being completely biased towards one side or story, but as I see what's going on in the world, I've been trying to correct myself. A big topic that this reminds me of is politics (a subject I do not like to talk about). I am one of those people who is not 100% on one person's side. I see everyone's side of the story in politics, even though I agree with one side o a specific topic and will disagree with another. That is how I feel every topic is, we can see one viewpoint, then talk to someone else and see their side. I am always opened to having conversations with people who think differently than me because it opens my eyes to different sides. In our world today, I think it is important that we are open to these conversations, rather than getting defensive and starting an argument. I also really enjoyed your insight on social media, when we "like" a post, we see posts that are similar to it, which can corrupt our way of thinking and only let us see what we think is correct. In that way, I believe social media plays a huge part in the way we think. As future educators, we need to change this way of thinking and encourage conversations. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHello Lili,
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about there being a third side to every story. In that case couldn't there be multiple sides to the story? there could be multiple witnesses that all have a different perspective which means that now there are multiple sides to the story. I definitely do feel like we should try to be neutral, but sometimes it just so hard because you will always think that the person that has more common ground with you is right. Also the person telling the story might try to manipulate it to make it seem like they aren't the bad guy and they were actually the victim when that could not be the truth. Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed reading your blog.
Hey Lili, I absolutely love how you started your blog. I never heard that there were three sides to every story, I will forever use that saying now because that is a much better way to look at it. Your so right, the media is really bad about only showing one side of a story and we as people just believe it most of the time and don't do extra research. I am definitely guilty of not checking the facts to some things because it can be time consuming, but I am trying to change that and start listening to all sides of the story. It can be hard to not quickly draw conclusions before haring the whole story, but that's something we should all try to work on. I like that you connected tis to the module and used your own personal example of how you were bias before hearing the whole story. We all have different views and perspectives that can change the way we think towards other people and sometimes our own stereotypes can get in the way.
ReplyDeleteHi Lili,
ReplyDeleteI really liked this entry and thought it was very well thought out! I really agree with there being three sides to every story. I think that everyone as a person interprets and sees things in their own way. That is just a fact. Something I see as alright might be seen to someone else as offensive or vice versa. Because of this, I genuinely agree with you that there is a third version to every story and that includes the truth of what actually happened with out a bias opinion. I think you're completely right too when it comes to social media. We definitely do not get the whole story as social media is not only limited in characters but also tends to be limited in how we interpret other peoples lives. Great post!