RLS: 13 Reasons Why

13 Reasons Why article: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/13-reasons-why-demonstrates-cultures-power/535518/

Second-order Knowledge Claims:

1.     That people’s thoughts can be accurately known by what they google (the article speculates that the show causes more people to consider suicide due to the rise in searches for ‘how to kill yourself’ for example).

2.     People are inspired and/or influenced in major life decisions (in this case, suicide) by what they observe in media (the suicide scene in 13 Reasons Why).

3.     Graphical depictions of an action affect humans’ psychology more than implied/non-graphical depictions.

Knowledge Question: To what extent is data gathered from search engines on particular keywords an accurate reflection of what people are considering as valid actions?

            Search engines are something we use every day, for the most mundane things, like ‘how many m&ms are in a 250-gram bag of m&ms?’, to the most urgent things, like ‘is my cough actually cancer’. However, how accurate is our search history at determining what kind of person are we? On one hand, we could argue that what we search can be a reflection of our self; revealing the media we consume, our background, our knowledge, etc., by speculating what prompted us to search in the first place. Relating this to 13 Reasons Why, it is possible that a depressed teenager may view the show, and be inspired and start searching up methods of suicide. However, at the same time, another person may simply have a curiosity in the subject (a bit morbid – but not unprecedented). With this real-life situation, both answers to this question can be argued for; the show brought the topic of suicide into discussion, whether that inspires people to take action is another story and question, however, it brings the topic to the viewers mind. But there is another aspect to consider with this RLS: Can it be said, with certainty, that the rise in searches related to suicide were a direct result of 13 Reasons Why? Yes, the study did look at a time period in which they avoided the death of Aaron Hernandez, a famous American-Football player, for example, to try and minimise the variables, but still; can a study be considered accurate using such uncontrolled methodology? There are a lot of interesting ‘TOK concepts’ that this real life situation raises, and is a good one for ‘exploring the TOK world.’