(Disclaimer: This post, as well as my entire blog, is opinion. Proceed with caution.)
My Facebook newsfeed is constantly filled with links to countless articles. You know the ones I’m talking about. Where in ___ (fill in the blank), easy to read bullet points, you can successfully navigate through any relationship, problem, or life in general.
Examples:
“5 Ways To Know He’s The One”
“10 Reasons Why You Should Move To Canada”
“7 Reasons Why Eating Cheese Will Prolong Your Life & Promote Hair Growth” (& seriously, wouldn’t that be cool if it did? #longhairdontcare)
I can’t fault people for writing and posting these articles. Sure, some of them are super annoying, but some of them are actually pretty fun to read. And if you think about it from the author’s point of view, these types of articles are guaranteed to get a large number of ‘hits’ just by the title alone. So no, I don’t find fault with the articles themselves. I do, however, find fault with us taking these opinion articles and viewing them as indisputable facts. Grab a pen & paper, it’s vocab time!
Opinion – A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. The SEC is the best conference in the NCAAF.
Fact – A thing that is indisputably the case. The SEC won 7 of the last 8 College Football National Championships (looking at you, Auburn).
I remember when I first started dating my boyfriend. I went looking for those “how to know” articles and cross reference how our relationship was to how I was told it should be. I mean, surely the authors of those articles were relationship experts and would guide me to full understanding. I know, I know, it was dumb. Not to mention, it was a little damaging. The fault wasn’t in the article, it was in myself for taking it as an indisputable fact when it was nothing more than opinion. Silly girl. You live and learn.
I know this all sounds pretty elementary, so if you didn’t get anything out of it, that’s cool. If you did get something out of it, pass it along!
I tried to find a heartfelt quote to wrap this post up, but I thought my time would be better spent coming up with that sign-off phrase. Which I still don’t have.
S i m p l y B r e A s h l e e 
Funny. I had to go over this topic with my daughter last year. She’s in the 4th grade now by the way. People tend to blend this two words together because they are scared of facts. Some people believe that celebrities know it all when it comes to politics and world events. They’ll believe someone like Kim Kardashian before they listen to a true journalists. Why? Because it’s easy. It’s easy to watch reality shows and keep up with the gossip web sites. Maybe I’m off subject right now but people don’t want to hear what’s true. They want you to sell them a fantasy. Who cares about facts, right?
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Stanley,
I couldn’t agree more! As I was writing this post, I all but assumed that it would be geared towards young adults and older. However, you bring up a good (& valid) point. How do we explain to an 8 year old that everything she sees on TV or reads online isn’t the gospel truth? I couldn’t imagine having to live up to those impossible (not to mention, confusing) standards in the 4th grade. Thankfully, your daughter is surrounded by people that will steer her in the right direction.
Thanks for your comment!
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