The Atrophy of Intellectual Honesty on Social Media

Everyone is a writer nowadays. Or at least that is the illusion being purported by the shameless or those devoid of scruples. 

That sports blog that you follow which previously could not construct basic sentences is now posting lengthy paragraphs and insightful game analysis. 

Remember that serial killer classmate from high school who used to murder all subject-verb agreement rules? Today, he regularly shares his thoughts on Facebook through grammatically-flawless text as he inspires colleagues and the younger generation. 

That self-styled thought leader on LinkedIn who has never played tennis his entire life now floods your feeds with his breakdown of Alex Eala’s serve as he explains how it can be improved. 

AI writing tools have miraculously transformed people into wordsmiths, political analysts, poets, sports authorities, and Palanca-caliber essayists. This is not an indictment of AI, which after all, is simply intended to aid anyone who has access to the web. Grammarly, for example, when used to check grammar, data, and sentence construction, can help people convey their messages with more clarity and sense.  

When utilized conscientiously, AI’s benefits are far-reaching.The context changes when one utilizes AI to do the thinking and writing, then brandishes the final output as his/her own words and ideas, par for the course in this age when the online currency is how much engagement one’s post generates. 

When a person draws validation in the number of reacts and in monetization, the basest human tendency is to thirst for more. The measuring stick is stretched higher as one targets more likes and a bigger compensation. The human desire for validation often has no ceiling. 

A way forward then is to be prolific, creating as much content as humanly possible, difficult if one is not a full-time content creator. The other is to post thought-provoking commentary on popular issues proliferating across social media, highly improbable for someone with no natural talent nor learned ability to write. 

The unconscionable, though, will fake it till they make it. These people have, their entire lives, been limited by an inability to articulate thoughts through written words. In their twisted sense of logic, AI has empowered them and has finally given them a voice, never mind that the voice is not truly theirs. One content creator who phonied in as his original something that was obviously AI-generated justified his action by saying it takes creativity to come up with the right words and prompts that deliver quality AI-produced work. That makes the output his own, he claims. 

This trivialization of the value of intellectual honesty and integrity will continue because netizens have very little appreciation for the rigor, discipline, research, and imagination that go into writing an original piece. They could not be bothered to ask why all of a sudden, that friend who goes "Where did you came from?" is now writing long form and scholarly essays, in impeccable Queen’s English, about politics, K-Pop, about parenting, and other social issues. It makes no difference to them that a political blogger who knows nothing about sports has turned into a tennis analyst overnight. 

The lack of discernment is manifested, explicit and by the second, in what people consume, who they follow, and how they react, comment, and behave on social media.   

When we lose our ability to think for ourselves, to create, and to be original, we succumb to an irreversible intellectual atrophy—a self-inflicted malady brought on by a society that willingly gave up the things that make us human.

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