Lately it seems like majority of media outlets are displaying very pessimistic views of our government. Across the nation it raises the question, where is the patriotism?
It is without fail that every time we turn on our TV, login to our social media, or even try to shop online, we are constantly bombarded with ads about how bad the current president is, how he is running the country into the ground. But what if the president wasn’t doing bad and these media outlets make us believe he is by disproportionately providing us with negativity?
At first glance this could be a laughable point of view, and I will agree with that. However, after watching a TED Talks recently about perception, it made me question this.
In short, the TED Talks suggested that a persons’ view could be altered based on how the information is presented to them. If a person were shown a glass of water that had half capacity in it, but told that the someone stopped pouring water into the glass. It would be suggested that the glass is half full. On the other hand, if you told someone the glass was being poured out and stopped, it would be half empty.
The glass having water being poured into it has a positive effect and someone pouring water out gives it a negative effect. Even though this glass has the same amount of water, it doesn’t matter because the info was delivered in different ways.
If you took the media coverage out of the question, how would you be able to tell that our country is “suffering” from the current sitting president? I know I would not be able to tell you, I personally would assume that there have been no adverse effects from him taking office at all. In fact, if you looked at our economy alone, our country is thriving.
I am not, nor would I suggest that our president is the best president of all time or even a better president than the previous. That is for you to decide. However, our country is constantly being told that the president is “pouring the glass of water out” when there is no evidence supporting the claims.
For whatever reason we now live in a country that others cannot be part of a winning team, they would rather have the entirety of our great nation fail, than have one man help us all due to them disliking him for his arrogance.
So the next time you read an article or headline, or hear someone making political claims, ask yourself, is the glass really half empty?
