MA in Creative Writing graduate, Mark Kelleher, considers the broader implications of living in a “post-truth” era.

The Oxford Dictionaries’ recent selection of “post-truth” as its word of the year was a suitably unorthodox one for a period of time that frequently resembled a protracted episode of The Twilight Zone.

The accompanying definition – hardly needed – stated it was an adjective ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’

In short, the truth is still out there, somewhere – it just might not be as relevant as it once was.

If the word itself is abstract, the reasons why it was chosen and why it may well now feature in common parlance are easily identifiable. The UK’s unexpected decision to isolate itself from the EU and the grisly sight of Donald Trump’s surreal ascension to the US presidency have led many to justifiably wonder if we’re about to usher in an epoch in which the wheel of time will begin to reverse.

Their outcomes and potential consequences aside, the campaigns from which both results triumphed were marked by mythologies. Inaccurate information was regularly disseminated and used for the purpose of crude political point-scoring.

While it’s impossible to quantify just how many were hoodwinked, the fact that Facebook has come under fire for its hosting of false stories is enough to tell you how much misinformation is out there.

There is a danger, however, in fixating on the year’s two most confounding events when trying to make sense of this post-truth existence we’ve all been seemingly dragged into.

To reduce the issue to something strictly political-based might similarly be troublesome. The problems with gravitating towards untruths run deeper than that.

If a society that abandons the truth is one that leaves itself open to harm and manipulation, so too does the individual who follows the same perilous route.

While cultural commentators might suggest that history reveals that the truth has only ever mattered to people when it’s benefited them, post-truth has only recently been brought to its grim extremities. Anyone with an iota of self-awareness and a web connection will be able to tell you why: social media and the people who use it.

While critics bemoan Facebook and Twitter for the anti-social tendencies it has inspired in its users, the graver impact of both platforms is  largely ignored.

Heralded for providing quick and easy access to an incomprehensible amount of people and data, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s only a matter of time before the world’s woes will be solved by a tweet or the ultimate selfie. Not so. Instead, social media has collapsed in on itself, not least because its flaws mirror those entrenched in the people who comprise its traffic.

Twitter is the most problematic medium. Rather than creating an environment where conflicting issues can be maturely discussed, it has formed a vast echo chamber that is heavy on heart but slack on nuance. To put it bluntly, many users tend to exclusively follow and interact with people whose interests and beliefs match their own.

As a result, the other side of any argument is rarely seen. The problem with this is obvious: it creates a mindset that our views are irrefutably right because everyone else we are tuning into agrees with us.

To lay the blame on social media might be foolish, though. Regardless of its many pitfalls, it is still merely a representation of human behaviour. Therein lies the fundamental problem: us.

In order to understand why we behave in this way, it’s worth turning to psychology. Confirmation bias, which afflicts all online and offline lives, is the tendency to seek out or interpret information that verifies the preconceptions we hold. It’s not difficult to see why such a phenomenon exists: we don’t like thinking that we might be wrong. It hurts the ego and exposes our deep-seated imperfections.

In most cases, the results are relatively innocuous. If I enjoy a novel or a movie, there is no harm in me wanting to hear the opinions of those who also enjoyed it, rather than those who thought it was crap.

Our biases become dangerous, however, when they inform decisions that have the potential to severely alter our lives and the lives of others. Be it in the polling booth or how we react to global warming and the recent refugee crisis, we need to be completely aware of and confront objective reality.

For those of us who are adults, doing this isn’t simple. It involves a stripping away of our long-held, flimsiest notions and a total commitment to the truth, even if that truth is something that discomforts us.

That alone, however, is not enough to secure a better future in which rationality has been revived and applied accordingly. We also owe a duty of care to the world’s youth. We need to somehow make sure, be it in the classroom or in the home, that from as young an age as possible they critically engage with the world around them.

It might require a reform of the school curriculum, where accumulation and regurgitation still takes precedence over creative thinking and expression. It might even demand a transformation of the way in which we speak to children in their formative years.

Clearly, something needs to change. We owe it not only to ourselves, but also to those whose quality of life is dependent on a recognition of what is inarguably true. Only time will tell if such a future can be moulded.

An early indication may well be what is chosen as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries twelve months from now.

A version of this article appeared in the Evening Echo – http://www.eveningecho.ie/ – on November 30.