How We Create Our Own Fake News | Bobby Duffy | TEDxLiverpool

Summary

In this talk, the speaker explores the gap between perception and reality on various global issues, such as immigration, teenage pregnancy, and crime rates. Through studies across 40 countries, it's revealed that people often overestimate negative occurrences due to vivid emotional stories and underreporting of positive changes. The speaker emphasizes the evolutionary basis of our brains' focus on negative information and the impact of living in information bubbles, concluding with a call for mindfulness and optimism amidst misinformation.

Takeaways

• 📊 People often overestimate social statistics, such as immigration and teenage pregnancy rates, due to emotional biases and media influence.
• 🧠 Vivid and emotional stories create perception gaps, making us overestimate rare events, a phenomenon called emotional innumeracy.
• 📉 People tend to ignore slow, positive changes, like the decline in teenage birth rates, because such improvements are not widely reported.
• 📰 Media focuses more on negative stories because they attract more attention, reinforcing people's belief that the world is worse than it actually is.
• 🦁 Our brains are wired to pay more attention to negative information due to evolutionary survival needs, which leads us to overestimate threats.
• 🔍 We have a bias towards thinking that the past was better than it was, which makes us perceive the present and future as worse than they are.
• 🌐 People often generalize from their immediate social bubble, leading to misconceptions about broader society, as illustrated by overestimating Facebook usage in India.
• 💭 Human perception is shaped by biases like the 'what we see is all there is' effect, meaning we assume our experience represents the entire population.
• ⚖️ Misconceptions have always been prevalent, not just in the current era of fake news and misinformation, as seen in similar errors in perception in the 1940s.
• 🙂 The world is generally better than people think, and while biases are powerful, individuals can change their views when presented with accurate information.

Q & A

What sparked the speaker's interest in studying perceptions of immigration?

The speaker's interest was sparked 15 years ago when a study revealed that people in Britain significantly overestimated the level of immigration, which made the speaker question whether this perception gap applied to other issues and if it was unique to Britain.

What is the main focus of the 'Perils of Perception' studies?

The 'Perils of Perception' studies focus on understanding the gap between people's perceptions and reality on various issues across different countries, and exploring why these misperceptions occur.

How do emotional stories influence our perceptions of events like teenage pregnancies?

Emotional and vivid stories, often highlighted by the media, make us overestimate events like teenage pregnancies. This is due to 'emotional innumeracy,' where we tend to overestimate issues we worry about based on memorable, emotional stories.

What is the significance of the term 'emotional innumeracy' in the context of perception gaps?

'Emotional innumeracy' refers to the tendency to overestimate issues that evoke emotional reactions, like teenage pregnancy, because our brains focus on vivid, unusual, and emotionally charged stories, which distorts our perception of reality.

Why do people tend to ignore positive incremental changes, such as declining teenage birth rates?

People often overlook positive incremental changes because these improvements happen gradually and are not as sensational or newsworthy, leading to a focus on negative information that stands out more vividly in our minds.

How does negative information affect our brains differently than positive information?

Negative information triggers a stronger and more visceral reaction in our brains compared to positive information, due to evolutionary survival mechanisms where negative signals often indicated threats, like danger from predators.

What evolutionary explanation is provided for our focus on negative information?

Our focus on negative information is rooted in evolution, where being highly attuned to threats, such as predators, was crucial for survival. This attentiveness to danger has been passed down through generations.

How does the perception of the murder rate contrast with reality in most countries?

In many countries, people believe the murder rate is higher than it was in 2000, but in reality, the murder rate has significantly declined in most places. For example, in Britain, the murder rate is 29% lower than it was in 2000.

What is the 'what we see is all there is' effect and how does it shape our perceptions?

The 'what we see is all there is' effect refers to our tendency to generalize from our personal experiences and surroundings. For instance, people with internet access often assume most others are also online, leading to inflated perceptions of social media use.

Why does the speaker stress that 'the cat is alive' at the end of the talk?

The speaker uses the phrase 'the cat is alive' humorously to remind the audience to focus on the key takeaways of the talk—namely, that our perceptions are often distorted and that things are generally not as bad as they seem.