Does a duck's quack echo?

In psychology, there is an effect known as "the false consensus bias". This a cognitive inclination that leads us to believe that everyone is like us. You see this bias at work when we see the top 10 movies for the week (“Who the hell are all these people that watch Minions?”) or in politics (“Everyone I know thinks Trump is an clown! Who are these idiots that disagree?!”) or even in socioscientific issues like global warming ("Even scientists can't decide whether it is happening or not!")

The advent of the internet and social media has allowed us access to a wide range of sources for our information. However this does mean we as educators can be blinkered by the information that we choose to follow. Given time, this can create a subconscious belief that we and our fellow educators are the "lone nuts" battling against an educational system that needs changing and that the “Other Side” are crazy — an Other Side that just doesn’t “get it,” and is clearly not as intelligent as “us.” as they cannot understand the change that is needed. But this holier-than-thou attitude is counterproductive, it’s self-aggrandizement at the cost of actual nuanced discussion and if we want online and professional collaboration between educators to become productive, we need to develop a way to move beyond this paradigm.

With more discourse moving into the virtual sphere, we are seeing the emergence of an echo chamber. An echo chamber where those inside are increasingly convinced that everyone shares their views, that their ranks are growing when they aren’t. Some event happens and then those that you follow are shocked when those not in the your social media peer group reacts to news in an unexpected way to your own response. They then mock the Other Side for being “out of touch” or “backward looking.”

Fredrik deBoer, touched on this in his Essay “Getting Past the Coalition of the Cool.” He writes:

[The Internet] encourages people to collapse any distinction between their work life, their social life, and their political life. “Hey, that person who tweets about the TV shows I like also dislikes injustice,” which over time becomes “I can identify an ally by the TV shows they like.” The fact that you can mine a Rihanna video for political content becomes, in that vague internety way, the sense that people who don’t see political content in Rihanna’s music aren’t on your side.

When someone communicates that they are not “on our side” our first reaction is to dismiss them as not understanding the situation.  In this I am considering those who actually believe in an opposing viewpoint of a complicated issue, and do so for genuine, considered reasons. Or at least, for reasons just as good as yours.

This is a fundamental rejection of the possibility to consider that the people who don’t think the same way you do might be right. It’s a preference to see the Other Side as a cardboard cut out, and not complicated individuals just like you. It’s impossible to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media in this way. We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.

On Twitter and Facebook this means we tend to prioritize by sharing that which will garner approval of our peers over material that’s actually challenges our preconceptions. We share that which ignores wider realities and selectively share information.

A solution, maybe to be more willing to sacrifice your social image and be willing to work and learn with people who are not like you. In other words you have to recognize that the "Other Side" is made of actual people too who are just as passionate about education.