Historical Critiques of Social Media Through the Ages

Date: March 16, 2024 This is an SGEM Xtra episode. Yes, that is two back-to-back SGEM Xtra episodes. The critical appraisal that was lined up for this week's episode got delayed due to some scheduling problems with clinical responsibilities. You can access all the slides for this episode from this LINK and see the presentation on YouTube. This episode is from a talk I gave a few years ago on social media for knowledge translation. How this technology could make the world a better place. I’ve come to recognize that many SGEMers are not very familiar with the best movie decade of all time, the 1980’s. Therefore, I created this talk using the Matrix as a more contemporary theme from the late 1990’s early 2000’s. The Matrix was a groundbreaking movie created by Lana and Lily Wachowski and released in 1999. It started a movie franchise blending science fiction and action in a visual masterpiece. The first movie introduces us to a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality created by intelligent machines to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source or batteries. Thomas Anderson (Mr. Anderson), a computer programmer by day and a hacker named Neo by night, discovers the truth about the Matrix. He is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, led by Morpheus and Trinity. Neo is believed to be "The One," a prophesized hero destined to end the war between humans and machines. The film explores themes of reality, freedom, and control. Like Morpheus in The Matrix, “all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more”. "What if I told you"…Morpheus never says that in The Matrix. Yet “what if I told you” is one of the most well-known Memes. There are many quotes from movies that are wrong/misquoted. Here are three examples of movie misquotes. For a list of the top ten movie misquotes click on the LINK: Play it again Sam (Casablanca 1942): That line is never said in the movie Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart actually says ”You played it for her, you can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it!". Luke, I am your father (Star Wars V The Empire Strikes Back 1980): The actual line by Darth Vader is “No, I am your father.” If you build it, they will come (Field of Dreams 1989): James Earl Jones says"People will come, Ray." Back to the lecture, Morpheus sitting in the chair wearing cool sunglasses and offering Neo the red and blue pill never said “What if I told you”. In the actual dialogue in the scene, Morpheus says: "Do you want to know what 'it' is?". What it is for today’s lecture is the problem with knowledge translation and how it can be addressed with Social Media. Trinity tells Neo in The Matrix “It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did. In the movie, the question was “What is the Matrix”? For this lecture, the question is “How long does it take for high-quality clinically relevant information to reach the patient? There are a few answers to the question of how long knowledge translation takes in medicine. One answer is from Dr. John Jackson who was a British Neurologist. He said, “It takes 50 years to get a wrong idea out of medicine, and 100 years a right one into medicine.” This means it takes decades for knowledge translation. In the age of social media that is way too long. Max Planck Another answer to the question about how long knowledge translation takes in science comes from Dr. Max Planck. He was a famous physicist who said “New scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a die generation grows up that is familiar with it.”  In other words, it is not facts, evidence or logical arguments that convince people to change their position on a subject but rather the old advocates had to die first for the new information to take hol...