Upvoted and resteemed because this is absolutely on point. Things are getting better, despite the picture that media sources (especially the mainstream ones) would like to paint. Case in point, here in the US we've been constantly bombarded about shootings in public places and the gun rights debate has been pushed consistently over the last several years. Yet, despite this obsession with painting mass killings as some sort of regular thing that only happens here because we're horrible, gun-loving psychos, the US hasn't been safer. Violence is down over all.
That's why I think a lot of people have turned to alternative news sources or to podcasts and a wide variety of contributors. It's a lot harder to be bamboozled when you're collating a lot of information from multiple sources. It gives me some hope for the future of information media. :D
Yeah, i like wouldn't watch cnn or fox or any of them really. I only do bevause it is on at effing work all the time.
Id much prefer it delivered in Stephen colbert fashion or the daily show
Hi Chelsea! Thanks for the discussions!
See the answer to Andrei regarding the news organisations!
Hi Andrei,
The problem is that the brain is terrible at statistics.
We simply don't pay attention to all the stuff that DIDN'T happen.
The media knows it would be bad headlines and would not grab attention so the whole system perversely evolved to this bad news delivery machine.
I don't think there are evil forces really, it is in the nature of the beast, can't blame the scorpion for stinging.
What I do wish is that more people understood that the media is not (never has been) about objective information, it is a machine specifically designed to grab our attention.
And they have consistently hacked this bad news loophole since the beginning.
Unfortunately now in the next step in that evolution seems to, instead of only reporting bad news that actually happened, going a few steps further by manufacturing opinion and distorting information even more to keep people ever more emotional.
"News" organisations have found out that actually it is a lot cheaper to have a few people yelling opinions at each other than actually spend money to send people abroad to go look for themselves.
So far as they can tell it seems to hijack attention just as well...
ALL of them are guilty of this, no matter political slant...
I disagree. I think brains are great with statistics. It is easy to pay attention to the things that aren't happening because you can know they aren't on the news. Housing market=GREAT! Stock market=GREAT! Commercial real estate=GREAT! Rental market=GREAT! The problem with people's brains is they love to predict what will happen. If people would just realize that they cannot predict the future everybody would be OK. But, then we wouldn't have a market or Las Vegas. People are strange, but by saying that the brain isn't good with statistics is too broad of a statement. I do, however, agree with your negative comments on the news and the media. I am not the biggest Trump fan, but I am very happy that he is spreading the Fake News movement. What people need to keep in their mind, is that all news is fake if they are trying to predict what will happen. The only way to keep news real is to show video of the facts that hasn't been edited or tampered with. The local news seems to be the only real news. But, even the local news leaves out stories of all time new highs in the stock market. But, right when the market goes down 1% they have a conniption fit. It is unfair to the people! Trump also has called out the media on their negativity.
Thanks for disagreeing :)
Human brains are capable of rational thought yes, and when in that mode it is possible to understand statistics.
Most of the time we are not thinking rationally though: here is a pretty good write up:
http://www.burns-stat.com/review-thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman/
Marketers, news agencies, banks, creditcard corporations, car salesmen have understood this for decades already and have been using this weakness of human minds quite successfully to rip people off constantly.
Why do people take on credit card debt, get car loans which almost double the cost of the car, buy stocks that are too expensive? Yes on paper this all should be obvious if you do a few simple sums, but most successful corporations have found that if you can keep the emotional part of the brain flooded with stimuli, people never get around to engage the rational part of their brain. Why do you think car ads had nice looking girls next to them? That is no accident,
it works and has a measurable impact on bad decision making.
Thinking, fast and slow should be mandatory reading for anyone with a brain...
Yep, politics aside they are all pressing the emotional hot button for attention. Or worse, tweeting! I really wish people would stop clinging to tweets so much. But they do the trick don't they? Vague little blurbs that push the hot button