As I write this, we are all staring down the barrel of what might be the most divisive and frightening few weeks in modern history.

U.S. president Donald Trump has confirmed what we all expected, that he will not commit to a peaceful and orderly transition of power in the event he loses the American election. That decision has left historians, constitutional experts and plenty of others at a loss, with not much left to do but sit back and watch in horror as we race towards American’s frightening, potentially liberating or potentially deadly Election Day.

By comparison here at home, things look positively Pollyannaish. Premier Scott Moe has committed to the shortest possible writ period, presumably to avoid campaign gaffes or other elements outside of his control, and there many, derailing what appears to be a relatively easy win for him.

Provincial candidates have revealed their criminal convictions and drunk-driving records, so presumably we won’t have to endure much of that kind of back-and-forth sniping and one-upping between parties.

And, of course, we’ve got the Saskatoon municipal election and its dog’s breakfast of mayoral candidates. Without credible polling numbers at the time of writing, I can’t pretend to have a clue who is going to win this thing, but given the level of discourse so far, it seems like it won’t be the electorate.

Here’s what I know for sure — every single one of us is viewing these history-making election campaigns through an extremely unique perspective, one that has been carefully curated for us by Facebook.

Perhaps that’s not what you were expecting to hear, if not, my first recommendation would be to watch the jaw-dropping documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix.

In it, former Facebook corporation (which includes Instagram and other popular social media channels) executives explain how social media keeps track of each of us on a microtargeted level, using data from our patterns of behaviour we exhibit on our phones and other devices, as well as social media users, to create a consumer profile.

Facebook then auctions each of us off to the most appropriate advertiser, selling the advertiser space on our individual social media pages. Facebook also curates the content we see when we scroll, in order to make it the most appealing to who we are — or to influence who we are.

The end result, according to the documentary filmmakers, is every single person on the planet living in a slightly different bubble (I digress, but I’m so sick of that word) of reality than the next person. It sounds a bit whacky, but when you think about it in the context of the world around us, it makes sense.

Have you not wondered lately how some people can feel the way they feel? Or think what they think? How any reasonable individual could believe something so outrageous?

The answer is through indiscriminate use of social media. Unless a person actively seeks out the facts — not the spin, the facts — from credible news agencies, or at the very least compares the facts that are being reported between news agencies, they will believe whatever their social media channels are curated to want them to believe. Therein lies the golden opportunity for less scrupulous candidates and parties, or even countries and their dictators, to use misinformation campaigns to manipulate public sentiment.

While I’d like to say now that this phenom is only limited to the U.S. presidential campaign, it’s not. We’re already seeing a number of mistruths and, um, alternative facts, being presented in campaign advertising.

Please do your research, regardless of who you’re hearing it from. Do not fall into the trap of choosing not to assign merit to a candidate’s words or actions, instead choosing to believe their opponent’s interpretation of those words and actions.

The bottom line, literally, of this column is this: As you get set to cast two very important votes in the coming weeks, do your homework. Google is your friend.

Do not rely on social media ads and five-second sound bites to inform yourself. However, you also need to take breaks. Take time to think and contemplate what you know before you vote. We’ll all be better off for taking the time to get this right.

-Tammy Robert