Where Do Your Beliefs Come From?

An organization concluded its ideal client is a 45-year-old female HR professional. That discovery wasn’t surprising. But this was: The ideal client claimed her primary source for news and information was Facebook.

Facebook may be terrific for some things, but is it the best source of information that shapes what you believe? For example, when someone sent me this video they’d seen on Facebook, I was amazed. Too amazed. It only took me a minute to discover it was a fraud. The email thread showed dozens of people had shared it — believing it to be real — without bothering to check it out.

I’ve spent way too much time fact-checking the videos and memes friends pluck off the internet to “inform” me of accusations about an organization’s misdoings, an executive’s transgressions or a grave political conspiracy. So many smart people allow their beliefs to be shaped by false prophets