Research ! Do yours

How critical thinking matters, how do we really evaluate information? Tune in for a thought-provoking perspective.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:55

What's up though? What's up though? Welcome back to the Ring of My Podcast with your girl Key. It's been a minute, but I'm back where I want to be in the audio trap house. Contrary to what's trending, I'm gonna always love it over here where I can run my mouth and give y'all news, information you can use in less than an hour. The conversations that make you stop, think, and see things from a different perspective. Not trying to be controversial or create discord, but just make us think. That's all I come to do. Make it just stop and think. Because let's be real, we don't all use our minds to its capacity these days. GPS, AI, chat, internet, a lot of things done took us out. So that left side or that right side, whichever side that you didn't used to use, you're using it a little bit less today. So let's get into it. Today's topic is simple, but it's one that affects every part of our lives. The importance of doing our research. You know, kind of using your brain, taking a little time to actually look into something. Before I even get started, let me make one thing clear. Doing your own research doesn't mean believing everything you read online. Let me say that again. Doing your own research doesn't mean believing everything you read online. Because your research got to go further than online, because we know in this day and time we can post whoever we want to be and post whatever life, and it's gonna spread like wildflies. You know, we don't need that. It doesn't mean watching one video or reading one article and suddenly 50,000 followers, and suddenly that makes them an expert because people might just be nosy. I keep telling y'all this. Sometimes people just nosy or bored, and they follow you don't mean it necessarily mean believe what you're saying, or what you're saying is actually relevant or validated. So we gotta get out of that concept that we believe that listening to everything and watching one thing online is actually real research. Real research requires curiosity, patience. You gotta be hungry for the information, and you gotta be patient to look for it in more than one place, and a willingness to challenge your own assumptions. We're not always alright. You know, I get this all the time, and people think, oh, well, you think you know everything, but I don't talk about nothing that I have not researched unless and I'm playing, or I'm just running my mouth, jabbing jig, jabbing, jaw jacking, whatever, whatever. I but you're gonna know when I'm serious, whatever I'm serious about, I'm passionate about. And I have took the time, I've I've I've taken the time to challenge my own assumption and be patient and learning and listening and validating my research. We live in an information world today. We are flooded with information. I'm talking about from your online resources to what I'm doing right now, your podcast, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, black TikTok, white TikTok, orange TikTok, whatever the hell y'all listening to. It's just so much information out here, and not everyone has took the time to research that information. They just sharing, resharing, retweeting, and re-recirculating lies and bad information. Every time you open your phone, someone's telling you what to believe, right? Politicians, influencers, and the influences are the worst to me because the influences are basically not influencing you to do nothing but follow them, and they have followed somebody, and they have not researched what they following, but they influencing that whole freaking world to follow a delusion and a misconception. We got news outlets that's stretching the truth further than they ever stretched it before. Your friends and your ear, family, then you got algorithms. Oh my goodness. The algorithm is like we know who controls the algorithms, but it's unreal because you literally talk about or think about what you want to talk about, and then it's in your email, it's in your timeline. The algorithm is real, and y'all, we gotta pay attention to that. But the problem isn't that information exists, the problem is that too many people accept information without ever asking. You just go with something, read it, go with it because you're looking in this information water we're in, and you're seeing, oh, they got a bunch of followers, so it must be true. They must be experts because they're talking really loud, they must be experts because they post every day, and their videos are so etiquately edited, and their voice is so eloquent. Oh, and the flashing lights, and we got the streamers, and this, that, and the third. So it must be true because we're watching, we're giving views, and they're saying I'm getting a check for my content, so I must be an expert. Who is saying this? Why are we saying it? What evidence supports it? And is there any other other any other perspective besides that person, that one person who assumed they were an expert? And that's the problem. Too many people accept information without ever asking those questions. If we stop asking questions, we stop thinking for ourselves. My parents always said ain't no question or dumb question. Ask questions. I was a very inquisitive child. Very not nosy, but inquisitive. If I didn't like your answer, you won't have to explain to me. Tell me why I can't do this. Tell me what this is about. Tell me why we're doing this. I'm not just gonna take your go and go. And that's what we live in in this time, in this day and age. We take the go and we go. Headlines don't always tell the whole story, it's a catch 20. Most people never make it past the headline because we don't read. That's one of the reasons why I don't favor vlogging because I don't want you to see me, I want you to hear me. Because maybe it'll give you the initiative and the drive to want to go read. Go do some research, go look into it. A headline is designed to grab your attention, it's designed to sometimes just say, make you say, Oh, I I just I bought into this, I'm not gonna look no further. Sometimes it's accurate and it reflects the story, but bits and pieces of the story, and sometimes it just oversimplifies or leaves out important context. That's what it's for. That's why it's called a headline or a caption, because it draws you in. And I guess it's my writer key and to me because I'm always trying to think of something when I when I put out these novels to to to bring people in, and normally it's the title for books, sometimes for the movies, it's the trailer. Of course, always it's the trailer, and then you have y'all ever just uh watched a trailer and it just was the bum diggity, and then you watch the movie and it takes you an hour for the trailer to actually make it make sense, and you like, why did I do this? Kind of like, why did I get married? sequels like why why am I watching it again? Because we already know what's gonna happen, but it reels us in and makes us think that something new and different and exciting is gonna happen when in actuality is just fluff, you know. That's all it is. If we're going to share information or build opinions around it, we owe it to ourselves to understand the full picture before passing it along. We owe it to ourselves and to the people who you passing it to. Stop passing bad information. That's just like passing a lie. Confirmation over bias. Here's something we should all struggle with. We naturally look for information that supports what we already believe. You look for stuff that you already know. It's almost like the whole Tigger situation. Why are you in that man's phone? You looked in this man's phone for what you already knew was going on, and you just needed that validation or that confirmation. Girl, get that man his phone. Say out his phone, get off the floor, stop crying, hollering, and doing all this nonsense because you already knew and you just look for it. That's called confirmation bias. Real growth happens when we're willing to examine viewpoints that challenge us. So sit down, ask the question. See how his face looks. Are you cheating on me? Did you text another woman the other night when you went into the bathroom? When you went downstairs and said you were getting a glass of water, did you really step out on the porch and have a conversation with Josiah Peace? Look at him and see how his reaction is. Examine the viewpoints that challenge us. Y'all keep that in the back of y'all mind. You don't have to agree with everything you read, but you should understand why people believe what they believe before dismissing them. Because reading and knowledge is definitely power, but we also have to be cognizant of what we read and the source. There's the key word there. Source. I'm teaching y'all today. See, I thought I was gonna come on here and start a podcast and just run in my mouth and you know, still hoping y'all would pull something out of what I say. But this is gonna make you re-examine how you see everything, how you read every post, how you read your newspaper, how you turn on your news, how you listen to your friends, how you listen to your peers, how you consume and receive the gossip, the lies, the truth, the fluff, the BS. And then, if we want to go and research it and look into it. So, research requires credible sources. And your homeboy, your homegirl, and Lulu and Pokey and Poki Nam is not always a resource just because they want followers and they want content and they want to create and they want to be influencers and they want to get that $2.50 check from Facebook and Instagram and TikTok who ain't gonna never ever boost your algorithm because you ain't never paid for an ad. So they ain't gonna boost nothing anyway. So you ask yourself, what websites am I visiting? Not every website deserves your trust. Is this information supported by evidence? Is the source transparent? Can I verify this through multiple reputable sources? Multiple. That's the key word there, guys and girls, content creators, influencers, and all you fellow social media people. You have to put in some work before you start spreading the BS. Is the source transparent? Can you verify this through multiple reputable resources? Can you? Is the information current? I have looked at posts, and I know all y'all have done it, where the headline, the the caption may grab you, old lady, chopped her baby up, gave it to the husband, the boyfriend, took it down south, put it under fender bender, da-da-da-da, and never found them. You you go to going on and retweeting and resharing and mad at the word and really looking people, them people done been executed. That story 10 years old. It's already done with. But now we done resurfaced and brought this algorithm back to bring it to the surface like it's something that just happened. So you have to be mindful of that. The goal isn't always to find someone who agrees with you. The goal is to get as close to the truth as possible. Agree to disagree. We love to say it, right? Oh, I agree, disagree. But then we find ourselves arguing with bots, we find ourselves arguing with people who got two followers, we find ourselves arguing with people who don't even believe in the same thing you believe. It's okay. Because you need to get closer to the truth and what you believe and what you share. Don't let the algorithms think for you. Social media is designed to keep you showing you content, showing other people content similar to what you've already watched. So you gotta be multi-visual. I think that's the word I want to use. Multi-visual. Watch different stuff, step outside your box, do something different. Over time, your feed can become an echo chamber, and it's only gonna show you. If you if you post fight videos, that's all you're gonna get. If you post food all day, that's all you're gonna get. If you are controversial, that's all you're gonna get is bots and drama. Mix it up. That's why it's important to intentionally seek different viewpoints. Read broadly, people, and avoid assuming your feed represents the whole freaking world. Everything that you you know, I had one follower that I almost unfollowed them because they irked me so bad because they only saw one side of everything, and they thought just because people had degrees and accolades and they done did all this studying that what they post is actually true, and they have actually never really even been evidently involved in what they were talking about. Like basically, you have no experience, just plain cut and clear, you just done been doing a whole lot of schooling and you've been doing a whole lot of talking. So they figured everything they post had to be so factual when it absolutely wasn't. It wasn't, and I'm like, you one person, and you ain't never even did this, but you just running your mouth and talking about stuff that you absolutely don't know nothing about. That's why it's important to always do your own research. Always, always take the time. Don't try to be the first person to put it out there, be the right person and the truthful person to put it out there. Teach the next generation. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is critical thinking. Critical thinking got me through nursing school, critical thinking got me through times in my relationships when I would have blown up and had a whole meltdown if I just didn't sit down and do a little bit of critical thinking. Like, did the chicken really cross the street? Did I really need to blow up about this? Do I really need to look in this man's phone? Do I critically think what was he really doing? Maybe he was at work, you know, maybe he didn't hear his phone. Maybe it was on silent, maybe it did die. Critical thinking. You have to weigh all options. That's basically all critical thinking is, anyway. You know, they they teach us in jobs that is real deep. You know, you gotta go real, real deep with it. You just gotta be patient. Take time, do the research, analyze the situation, and think. Thinking, thinking, thinking. We gotta teach our next generation how to how to think questions, teach them how to verify information, teach them that changing your mind after learning new facts isn't weakness, it's growth. You can actually you won't have to stand on everything. Your business don't have to be concrete in this right here. You grow by learning, and sometimes learning always, most times, consists of doing something different than where you've been doing it. That's how we grow in parenting, that's how we grow in relationships. Repetition sometimes cripples us, and people tend today to be so fixated on repetitively getting on their social media sites and thinking that one post with a lot of followers has to be facts. Teach them that changing your mind after learning new facts isn't weakness or growth. I'm gonna say that another time. That's the third time. Teach this new generation that changing your mind after learning new facts isn't weakness, is growth. Y-n's. You don't have to be called YN's. You can change your mind about the acronym. And it don't mean you're weak. It means you're growing in your faith and growing and knowing you're a young man. Tell them to call you a YM. You ain't gotta be out here banging with your pants hanging down. If you go against the grain, you ain't weak. You growing. I don't want my crack out. I don't wanna be I I I don't want to not be able to walk and run if I need to because my pants are so skinny and they're hanging past my butt. I don't wanna be half naked all the time just because everybody said that's a thing to do. We gotta teach this. We gotta get back to teaching our children to look into the past because the past makes their future, and that's how they grow. You gotta keep them informed. That's how communities are built. And last but not least, because I ain't gonna hold y'all, I I I really am starting to learn how to podcast ever, right? I used to be on here for like an hour and a half. Nah, it ain't that serious. I've learned to do my research and what I want to discuss and get it done. Just get straight to the point. So, final thoughts here. Before you post, before you argue, before you vote, before you invest, before you make a life-changing decision, you know, go sign your name on a dot and you don't even know what neighborhood you're moving in, you don't know the person who you bought the house from. Of course, you probably don't because most of your realists are strangers, but you didn't you didn't sit down and have a conversation with them. You didn't you didn't check their Facebook to see what type of ethics they have, you didn't check their LinkedIn, you didn't check their Instagram to see if they really have the track record they purping about. Those are the things you gotta do. Pause. Read, verify, ask questions. Research is not about proving yourself right. That's what that's what gets me with people. Sometimes they think, oh, I gotta always be right. Your right gonna be your right no matter what nobody says, because that's what your mind believes. So it's your truth, but it doesn't necessarily always have to be proven for it to be right. But if the research supports the right and supports the proof, you ain't gotta do nothing. Say less. It's about being responsible enough to search for what's true, and it doesn't stop at one post, it doesn't stop at tweaks and shares. You gotta go deeper, you gotta be patient. You can't be the first one to share the story and be loud and wrong. Because when people stop thinking for themselves, someone else will gladly do the thinking for them. And it's these algorithms we got, and it's these people I hear that hate the truth. It's the liars, it's the troublemakers, it's the contraindicating people who never really sat down and been patient enough to do the research, they might have read one book and they think they the gurus of the whole freaking world. So let that resonate in your mind to do the research for yourself. If you don't take nothing else away from what I just said in less than an hour. Stop, think, ask questions, pause before you post, before you get into an argument, before you debate, before you converse. Do your research. We have seen it proven that the officials of our country, and not just the president, many, many politicians get up there and run their mouth and don't know what the freak they're talking about. Just be babbling for no reason, having to their research, don't know the budgets, don't know the econom the economic growth, the decline, they don't know the neighborhoods, they don't know the fluctuance, they don't know the global issues. They just be up there just talking, just talking because I guess that they have nothing else to do. Don't be that person. We we we run out of too much time to be those people, you know. We gotta be responsible and do our research. So, with that being said, thank you for tuning in to run your my podcast. If today's conversation made you think, share this episode with someone you love and you value, and their truth and your truth ultimately matters over trends. So until next time, keep asking questions, keep learning, and never stop thinking. Keep growing, keep praying, keep loving yourself, and keep hoping for peace. We gotta be able to find some light at the end of the tunnel. We keep talking about a tunnel in the rain, but it gotta be some somewhere. So I hope y'all enjoyed this conversation with your girl. And I'll talk to y'all next time. Y'all have a good one.