Discussing the significance of history with Bored Panda, Dr. Laura Davis emphasized that it is literally all around us. “It's the lived experiences of the people we are talking to, the buildings we walk by every day, the historic monuments and markers we drive by and don't always notice, and the murals on the side of a building.”
She noted that the past shapes, impacts, and informs the present. Therefore, history helps us make informed decisions about the present. “The knowledge of history helps us to contextualize the ever changing and often chaotic present by allowing us to understand change over time, cause and effect, and contingency,” she said, adding that by studying history, we can better understand how and why we got to a specific moment in time. “To quote the American Historical Association, #EverythingHasAHistory.”
“Understanding history allows us to gain invaluable critical thinking skills: contextualization, analyzing problems, evaluating evidence, and debating,” Dr. Davis continued. “It helps us gain cultural awareness and empathy for those who may be different from us. It teaches us about both the past and the present, allowing us to see patterns and to understand cause and effect—-and how and why things are the way that they are. And, history can even help us understand ourselves better.”
Dr. Samuel J. Redman seconded the idea that knowledge of history can help us understand today's happenings. “Students of history learn to build up an important muscle, sometimes called ‘historical thinking.’ Through history, we often come to a better understanding of what has motivated people throughout time and what things challenged them,” he told Bored Panda.
“We also learn that we are not necessarily alone in terms of the emotions we experience or the challenges we face. Previous generations of humans have dealt with many of the same challenges. Those who have spent time learning about and thinking through history also tend to develop greater empathy and a better understanding of the richness of human perspectives and ideas. We learn about the forces that have shaped our world and that many of them are still active, influencing the world in which we live today.”
It’s no secret that many people nowadays get their knowledge from online sources, be it history or any other subject they’re interested in. But when browsing the loads of information, it’s crucial to make sure that the sources are reliable.
“For better or worse, many people get their history from the online world: recorded lectures on YouTube, informative TikToks, social media accounts that recount past events or share primary sources, web sites for museums and historic sites, and online articles like this one that engage in historical content. The issue of this, of course, is that not all accounts are trustworthy or based on historical data,” Dr. Davis pointed out.
“Just as we train our students to analyze primary sources to understand the creator's intent, audience, message, and historical context, we need to be critical of the online sources where we learn our history. Who is creating it? Why are they creating it? Where are they getting their information from?”
“Critical thinking means applying some degree of skepticism to all sources, but this is especially important when applied to sources authored online by non-experts,” Prof. Redman emphasized, discussing the reliability of online sources.
“Who created this source? What motivated them? What is the evidence behind the claims being made? What are the perspectives, points of view, or biases that are being expressed in this content? Can this information be verified by another, potentially more reliable source? With a great deal of online content such as memes, viewers are never given the chance to see the evidence behind these claims. What sources are being used behind this content? Without the ability to look deeper, viewers rarely check the veracity of the claims being made by many history-oriented memes.”
According to Dr. Redman, social media is a mixed bag for learning about history. “Without fact-checking, peer review, or any significant regulation, social media tends to favor stories that sound convincing, rather than stories we know to be true,” he noted.
“These stories sometimes contain grains of truth while also being wildly misleading or even inaccurate. Sometimes social media content is merely copied from another inaccurate source. I've noticed that many recent history videos posted online are written by artificial intelligence (AI). These tend to aggregate similar stories posted online and amalgamate them into ‘new content.’ But much like the weird human-like photos (with six fingers) that AI frequently generates, something within these AI-generated videos is usually a little ‘off.’
“On the other hand, social media has the potential to connect people with stories that interest them, especially in introducing them to stories with which they are unfamiliar,” the expert added. “Social media also has a global reach, introducing audiences to new stories, aided by rich visuals, and opening the door to added curiosity.”
While some online sources can be a double-edged sword for history enthusiasts, factually correct memes tend to do more good than harm. “I think people can benefit from history-focused memes,” Asst. Prof. Davis told Bored Panda. “Memes can be an effective way to engage in history-based humor and draw people into the past. Memes often grab our attention, make what we are learning more memorable, and can make people, events, and ideas of the past seem more relatable to the present.
“I think the key is to take things a step further and then share more historical information about the event, place, or person highlighted in the meme. So, for example, a meme about World War II could also include a link to the National World War II Museum or a book about the conflict for more information,” she suggested.