We have been trained to have opinions, always. If you don't possess opinion on certain things, you are looked upon as an unattractive, a fool or a boring person. We are often forced to have opinions because they are the ice breakers at social gatherings. In most cases, things like Politics, Cricket, Movies & Gadgets are always the topics of possessed opinions.
There is nothing wrong in having opinions about things. The problem lies in having an opinion on each an everything in the world, whether you know enough to have one or not. Opinions are dangerous to have especially when you want to grow in your life. To have an opinion is a skill as well as a responsibility of being humble enough to listen someone who hold exactly opinion and to change our opinion based on facts. We seldom do this.
Furthermore, we rarely see a person refusing to portray his opinion on certain subject matter. Imagine a friend asking you, "What do you think about the newly elected UP CM?". In response, you reply, "Frankly, Neither I know much about UP Politics nor about the background the new CM. I am not sure whether it's good or bad." It's odd to say this, isn't it? You feel withdrawn by saying this and you don't want to seem fool, so you pick an opinion which is widely accepted on media about a person because that prevents you from being a fool. Here, a bias called, Social Proof is at play.
Additionally, Our opinions are always binary, and mostly it's influenced by our preconceived notion over matters in past. As I said, we can't afford to have neutral opinion. I think, it's not in our genes. You have conclude something in good thing or bad thing. There is no way out.
The other reason to have quickest opinion through social proof is because it needs enormous amount of mental capital to process information, interpret it and coming to an appropriate conclusion. The proper thinking also gives you pointer when to change the opinion if the new information come across you. These things take lot of time and mental discipline, in the generation of FB, WhatsApp and Instagram who is that free to spare 30 minutes to research about something before forming an opinion.
The reason for writing this whole thing is not to preach you over it. Like other posts, it's reminder to my own self about not jumping to an opinion without processing enough data. I learnt somewhere, when you write something down, it clears your mind and it also helps you to think more clearly. The whole purpose was this only. Nothing else. 🙂
