You learn a lot about people in the moment of crisis and hardships. Whenever a crisis hits, the true element of each one of us will present itself raw and unfiltered.
Stories have always brought people together or apart, it is the thrill of the unknown that makes people so attached and captivated by them and it is in the meaning created that either unites or divides people. The petri dish of stories is a significant social incident that affects a significantly relevant group of people and the following happens whenever such incident takes place;
1- A story erupts and goes *viral* (a required pun nowadays).
2- everyone notices the story and starts following it.
3- One person shares their opinion on the story and everyone starts paying attention to that person.
4- Some people notice the attention that first person received and feel the need to get some of it.
5- A chain reaction takes places where every starts sharing stories, rumors, and their own opinions to get that kind of attention.
6- This chain reaction creates mass distraction from key priorities in life.
The first person who goes viral, the Megaphone of Rumors and Other Opinions as I like to call them, is almost never a qualified expert in the field relevant to the significant social event. As a result, the chain reaction created is a shit one with negative consequences including toilet paper shortages in grocery stores. Real qualified experts take the time to analyze and study the situation before making any claims.
In our defense as humans, we are terrible at handling uncertainty, and so we seek out any opinion that can explain the unexplained regardless of its credibility. However, it doesn’t have to be like that if we are aware of such shortcoming on our end and act accordingly.
There is a verse in Quran that translates to the following between quotations;
“O you who have believed, if there comes to you a wicked person with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance and become, over what you have done, regretful.” Surah Al-Hujurat [49:6]
It is not rocket science really. If we all resist the urge to share news from sources that are not credible, we can save our time, effort, and mind from being wasted on what is irrelevant.
