Social media: the modern cave.

Perception is reality. The notion that reality is a shared experience is flawed. Reality resembles a spider’s web, it is intricate, and for the one trapped in it is as strong as can be and to them, there is no escape, but from the outside, it is frail and can be swept away. Socrates believed that human knowledge is limited, and a person should know that they know nothing. Plato’s allegory of the cave exemplifies this idea of our limited knowledge and applies it to what we know to be reality. This concept is clearly evident in this age of social media. Social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc... were created to connect us to the world and broaden our realities. They seem to have had the opposite effect and made the social media consumer more immersed in their own perception of reality. (Intravia, Wolff, Paez, & Gibbs, 2017) found a positive correlation between media consumption and fear of crime and a lowered perception of safety. This study shows how the media can impact even our perception of personal safety.
Social media is comparable to Plato’s cave. The cave acts as a prison that confines its prisoners not only physically but mentally in their knowledge and in what they perceive to be a reality. The users of social media are comparable to the prisoners in the cave. The only difference being is the prisoners had no choice in being in that cave while the users choose to use social media. When a user begins to use a site like Facebook they become friends with the people they know, they follow the pages they like and the more they do so the more their Feed becomes a reflection of their ideologies. The more they rely on their feeds the more skewed their perception of reality becomes as they are only exposed to a limited subset of information most of which will support their existing beliefs. (Hayes, Smock, & Carr, 2015) found that people with strong political views attempted to reduce cognitive dissonance by reducing their exposure to conflicting information.
A person who supports a certain candidate they are likely to be friends with people that share similar views and what will appear on their feed will be articles and posts that are in support of that candidate. When the user is presented with information that opposite their beliefs or that they don’t like they may just remove the post from their feed. To get rid of this cognitive dissonance may become aggressive in that they might comment to start an argument or may even block that friend. This way they both limit their own knowledge as they censor what they are exposed to. The censorship also keeps them in a distorted reality that is composed of one side of a greater reality.
In Plato's story, the shadows are created as a result of puppets and a fire both of which are unknown to the prisoners and they create the shadows which appear to the prisoners frequently enough for the prisoners to name them. The prisoners are only exposed to aspect of the reality around them in which they are only able to view the shadows but not what makes the shadows. The shadows represent the comfort of one's own beliefs as well as the limits of knowledge. To the prisoners, the shadows are real they have known nothing but these figures their entire lives. The truth is that the shadows are a mere imitation and their limited knowledge is the cause of their false reality. The more the prisoners see the shadows the more their beliefs are reinforced, and false reality confirmed. This comfort of knowing that they will be seeing the shadows keeps them in this world of illusion instead of facing a reality unknown to them that brings dangers.
In the social media example, the shadows would represent the users existing false beliefs what they expect to see in their feeds. (Chou & Edge, 2012) found that students when looking at Facebook posts of others have a skewed perception and are more likely to make false attributions about the other users such as having a better life than them. This shows how this social media creates falsehoods in the users beliefs regarding how they view the reality of what is around them as well as themselves.
In order to see beyond the current reality, a person must be humble in order to follow Socrates doctrine and understand that a persons knowledge is limited only to what they know. Understanding the limits of one’s own knowledge allows a person to become more be more accepting of changing realities and perspectives. Plato’s allegory of the cave shows a different way to get escape the reality and that is to be bold and willing to question, explore and simply leave. This can all be applied to modern-day use of social media in that a person should question what they see, and they should look for what opposes their views and beliefs. Finally, take a break from social media and experience a reality outside the comforts of your personalized stories and feeds.

References
Chou, H. T. G., & Edge, N. (2012). “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others' lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 117-121.
Hayes, R. A., Smock, A., & Carr, C. T. (2015). Face[book] management: Self-presentation of political views on social media. Communication Studies, 66(5), 549-568. 10.1080/10510974.2015.1018447
Intravia, J., Wolff, K. T., Paez, R., & Gibbs, B. R. (2017). Investigating the relationship between social media consumption and fear of crime: A partial analysis of mostly young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 77(Complete), 158-168. 10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.047