It's Ok to Not Have an Opinion

2021-03-22

(This post isn't inspired by any one event, it's just something that comes to my mind every once in a while.)

Sometimes I feel with the way social media works that there can be a pressure to quickly form a strong opinion about [insert current event here].

Anytime something controversial happens you'll always have people taking to the internet, whether in a blog post or a quick one liner, to give their side and why they think they're right. And I want to be clear, I'm not knocking this. It's such a huge part of what makes the internet great, both for the writer and for the audience. Getting your thoughts down on paper and preparing them for an audience helps you refine the weak spots in your thinking. As an audience member, the internet can be super helpful in finding varied opinions on just about anything, hopefully making it easier to come to an informed conclusion yourself (or at the very least to become more informed about a subject's nuances and why people believe what they believe).

But all this comes with a side effect. There's a term that often comes up when talking about social media called FOMO (fear of missing out), and I think it can be applied to sharing opinions online. You see so many people talking about [xyz], why [foo] is the worst thing to happen to it, and why [bar] is going to be the thing that saves the day. Unconsciously you might start to think you're doing something wrong or won't fit in if you're not joining the conversation, and the immediacy of social media only adds to the pressure.

It's perfectly fine to take a step back and realize "Hey, I think I need a few days to process all this and see what to make of it". Disconnect, give yourself time to think, wait for more information. When you finally come back to it you'll almost definitely have an opinion that's more structurally sound and which you can put greater confidence behind than were you to stick with your initial reaction. Or you might even go "You know, this really doesn't even matter to me and my energy is better spent on something else".

- moddedBear

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