A Fleeting Fever: Social Media, Short Memory with a Loud Voice
Tehran - BORNA - In the age of social media, news rarely has a long lifespan. A single video, claim, or image can trigger waves of reactions, judgments, and analyses, yet just as quickly, it fades. Recent events surrounding two celebrities one from the political arena and another from the entertainment world highlighted how fleeting and emotionally driven public attention has become online.
News Explosion and the Attention Economy
User behavior on platforms like Telegram and Instagram shows that online news cycles are governed by the "attention economy." The more emotional, shocking, or visual a piece of news is, the more likely it is to be noticed. Yet, this speed and intensity also make its lifespan shorter.
Analysis of recent data regarding the two celebrities revealed that political content primarily circulated on more analytical platforms like Twitter, while content related to the entertainment figure spread widely on more general platforms like Telegram and Google.
However, the entertainment-related news, despite its sudden spike, quickly faded, whereas the political topic spread more gradually but sustained longer conversations among users. This pattern demonstrates that in the digital era, the type of content determines the depth and longevity of public attention: emotional news generates immediate reactions, while analytical or reflective content sustains longer discussions.
From Shock to Forgetfulness
Social media data clearly shows a repeating pattern of rapid spread, peak, and decline. Users respond to the first wave of news with an immediate flood of emotional reactions, and posts, tweets, and stories are shared at remarkable speed. Yet, within days, a new wave emerges, consuming the public’s attention.
In this process, there is little distinction between accurate and inaccurate news; both follow the same rapid cycle from production to forgetfulness. As a result, truth on social media is measured not by verification, but by “hotness.” The more visible a story, the more credible it appears even if it lacks a factual basis.
The Role of Platforms in Shaping Waves
Each social media platform attracts a distinct type of audience and shapes content accordingly. Twitter users tend to be analytical, approaching political and social topics with a critical eye. Telegram favors entertaining, rumor-driven, and emotional content, while platforms like Eitaa focus on formal, nationally-oriented narratives.
In recent events involving the two celebrities, Twitter and Eitaa predominantly covered the political figure, while Telegram gave more visibility to the entertainment celebrity. This division reflects the underlying mindset of users: analysis and discussion on one side, emotion and immediate reaction on the other.
Social Media as a Momentary Fuel for Public Opinion
In the modern world, celebrities have become more than faces; they are structures fed by algorithms, emotions, and public sentiment. Every user is not just a consumer but also a part of the dissemination machine.
The pressure to “be present” and “comment instantly” drives users to share and repost content without reflection. This behavior transforms platforms into spaces dominated by emotional responses, where both accurate and false news have short lifespans but leave deep impressions on collective perception.
Consequently, social media creates not a collective memory but a “collective forgetfulness.” Each new wave erases the previous one.
Celebrity as a Mirror of Society
In societies where traditional media play a limited role in discussion, celebrities inadvertently become primary channels for expressing public emotions. Political celebrities reflect society’s relaionship with power, while entertainment figures embody people’s connection to fame and ethics. In both cases, reactions are guided less by facts and more by collective sentiment.
Data shows that political content often sparks critical, structural conversations from social justice debates to critiques of class disparity while entertainment content triggers emotional, fleeting reactions: a mix of shock, sympathy, and judgment. Both waves, however, indicate not cultural insight but a crisis of trust and a thirst for excitement.
From Attention Economy to Eroded Trust
The rapid rise and fall of trending topics ultimately erode public trust. Users trapped in an endless cycle of news, accusations, denials, and controversies struggle to distinguish between reality and narrative. This creates a state of “media desensitization,” where events matter only as long as they are trending.
From this perspective, social media are no longer mere information tools but “collective emotional systems” that consume and forget new subjects daily.
In today’s media environment, news lives not according to its factual value but its capacity to provoke reactions. The recent examples of two celebrities illustrate a small part of the broader mechanism repeated daily on social media: shock, dissemination, reaction, and forgetfulness. Users post, media outlets share, algorithms amplify, and public attention passes—rarely pausing to reflect.
In this environment, the responsibility of both media and users is not just to verify information but also to slow down snap judgments. Only then, perhaps, can we pause amidst the relentless waves of news and remember that each “topic,” regardless of the noise around it, reflects a part of ourselves.
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