Social Reality and Selective Exposure

True Enough, written by Farhad Manjoo, is an interesting book that explores an number of different topics within the public sphere. For me the book is particularly interesting because Farhad Manjoo speaks about the thought process that goes into controversial topics such as politics, sports and conspiracy theories. My favorite example from the book includes his explanation of the controversial Princeton v. Dartmouth football game played in 1951. This is my favorite example because Manjoo uses a common occurance, a football game, as a way to prove that reality is not always something that can be agreed upon. The ideas of "social reality" (53) and unconscious bias tends to create different forms of reality that differ depending on social groups.

In his example Farhad Manjoo explains that the Princeton v. Dartmouth game was a huge topic of controversy because of the level of physicality the game was played with. For Princeton fans, the game was unusually physical because they believed the Dartmouth players intentionally attempted to hurt the Princeton players. On the other hand, Dartmouth fans believed the game was no more physical that it had been in previous years. It is understandable when there are such feelings from opposing fans after a game, but what is interesting to me is that these fans felt the same way after watching the game a second time. Manjoo poses this question, "How could people who'd watched the same game have come away with such contrary ideas of what had taken place on the field? (67) For me Manjoo is trying to say that the opposing fans watched the same game, but their biases did not allow them to process the events in the same way. He is also trying to explain that much of this bias is unconscious bias which can be seen by making the students watch the game a second time when they are a little more emotionally removed from the events. The reality is that there are two separate realities that are based on the social groups the opposing fans belong to. This idea is called “social reality”, and it is linked to the idea that people have unconscious filters when it comes to evaluating a social occurrence.

          
A social occurrence is the combination of a series of social events. Manjoo explains that a football game is similar to life because both are a series of small events strung together to create a larger occurrence.  As a result, people will unconsciously choose to ignore certain small events they find insignificant. I thought this idea was interesting because it is very similar to the idea of “selective exposure”. (30) In selective exposure people choose what information they expose themselves to base on their own beliefs. To me this is not much different because unconsciously people are deciding to ignore information that would be presented to them in a social event. I think Manjoo does a good job using the different ideas he presents in this book and weaving them together through his examples.

          
Ultimately, I believe the example of the Princeton v. Dartmouth football game is a good representative of Manjoo’s main argument that all people are affected by unconscious bias. As a result, reality is determined by your surroundings. What we unconsciously choose to expose ourselves to inevitable becomes our reality.