“Everyone is entitled to an opinion, as long as it’s an educated one.” Jody Westberg.
An opinion based on no, or a lack of, education is speculation. Opinions shift and change depending on the information they’re presented with, but facts will only change when the science does.
Social Media and Chinese Whispers
When it is an animal-related subject such as zoology or behaviour, oftentimes I have personally seen facts become twisted or changed as it confides with their agenda to push their opinion on other people. This has always been a thing but with social media on the rise, it is happening constantly everywhere. Have you ever played Chinese whispers? Chinese whispers is the best way to describe what is happening on the internet right now, there is so much information that it can be hard for people to understand the sources to trust and what is fact and what is fabricated.
Shock Factor
A lot of the time, people will use the shock factor by appearing to have ‘exposed’ something or someone, and unfortunately, negative information or news gain more engagement and attention than positive things, therefore it’s the best tool to use to manipulate an agenda or opinion on others.
The Mere-exposure Affect
Other psychological tools such as the mere-exposure effect created when someone is exposed to something on a frequent level they (unconsciously) begin to like it as they’re familiar with it such as being constantly fed a particular agenda, even if it’s negative.
Herd Instinct in Humans
The herd instinct to follow the crowd is a survival technique that social creatures, and even some solitary creatures such as sharks, use as a survival technique. For example, if the majority in a herd stays away from a particular animal it must be because that animal causes harm so others should stay away too.
The thing is, we humans have evolved to live in a world where, although we still have that herd instinct, we no longer need those instincts because we can now choose to live independently, we have no predators, we have learnt to farm nature for food, etc. There is nothing to stop us at this moment… so what use does our herd instinct have? No use, but it has begun to have a negative impact on our perception of reality and fabrication when it comes to social media.
Personal Experience
Watching the film ‘Blackfish’ I spotted contradictions almost straight away. They claim SeaWorld captured Tilikum for their parks then said and showed him being bought by the captures by Sealand of the Pacific and being transferred there for 9 years before Tilikum was actually bought by and transferred to SeaWorld Orlando. Right from the beginning the information this film presented conflicted and was not consistent throughout which is a huge red flag.
I have also been writing a blog for a few years now in favour of zoological facilities but often what I write is dismissed as supporting zoos is new territory for some people; it can be hard to take in new information as shown by the mere-exposure effect.
If you want to read more on the truths and facts on zoological facilities such as marine parks, you can read any of these sources:
https://blog.loroparque.com/loro-parque-participates-in-largest-ever-cetacean-welfare-study/?lang=en
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