“There’s a difference between knowing somebody and hearing about somebody. Just because you heard, doesn’t mean you know.”

-Unknown

Did you hear the rumor? They are going to let us out of our houses soon! Or was it that we are staying in until August? I’ve just heard so many stories, it’s hard to keep them all straight in my mind. There are a lot of rumors going around about this virus. Where it came from, how to fight it, when it will be gone, if it will come back. If you are like me, you are growing tired of all the misinformation. In the wake of this global pandemic, there are so many people contributing to the rumor spreading. We hear one thing from one news source and the opposite from another news source. When both are presented as fact, it can be hard to determine what is true. This spread of misinformation is damaging because we are getting so many different stories from seemingly credible sources, knowing that it cannot all be true. 

When you think about rumor spreading on an individual basis, it is not as harmful as mass rumor spreading, but it can still be very damaging to the individuals involved. When people hear a rumor from a trusted individual, it is easy for them to accept it as truth. Not enough people are critical of the information that they receive from those who are close to them. Once a rumor is believed by one individual, it easily spreads from person to person and becomes quite difficult to correct or contain. When even a handful of people have heard a rumor, there is little to be done to completely erase the misinformation. Once a rumor starts, it spreads like a fire. We can try to do damage control once it is out there, but even with a convincing argument, someone could still choose to believe the rumor after hearing the real story. The better course of action is to stop the spread of rumors in the first place. This practice starts with us. 

Right now in my business communications class, we just finished a section on intercultural communication. In this lecture, we talked about things like discrimination and from where that stems. Largely it is rooted in the fear or distrust of the unknown. But another major contributor to stereotyping and discrimination is the stories we make up in our heads. This refers to any information we assume or make up about someone without actually knowing it to be true. If you are thinking that this is not something that you do, you are likely mistaken. Think about the last time you looked at the way someone was dressed and made assumptions about how that person lives his/her life. Maybe it went something like this: you see someone dressed sloppily in public and in your head, you think something rude about that person, perhaps in regard to employment status, productivity, value, etc.

As humans, we have an innate desire to know things about other people. For some, this is a subconscious response. To satisfy this need we often fill in gaps of information in our head. That practice by itself isn’t necessarily wrong, but it can become bad when we start to accept this information as truth. The more we think about these made-up facts, the more they become a reality to us. This is the step in which it becomes dangerous. Once we accept these “stories” as truth, it is hard to backtrack and separate what is real and verified and what is not. It is easy for us to internalize these rumors and truth and spread them to those around us. In my opinion, these kind of rumors are more dangerous than intentional rumors, spread with the intention of hurting someone. I say that because these are rumors that we believe, so it is much easier to convince another person that it is true. This method of rumor spreading is much more common than rumor spreading with the intention of hurting another person’s reputation. 

There are a few things we can do to combat rumor spreading. The first is to realize when we are making assumptions about people and not internalize that information as truth. Next is to be critical of the information we receive from others. If it sounds outrageous, it likely is. Lastly, we can stop spreading information that we do not know to be true from first-hand experience. These are difficult things to do. If we can start to integrate these practices into our daily lives, we can really cut back on rumor spreading. If you have ever been on the wrong side of a nasty rumor, you know that this practice would be nothing but positive. 

- Bria