Information Avoidance: How People Select Their Own Reality
cmu.edu
cmu.edu
"Having information is painful and troublesome. We all have experienced this. If you have information, you must first read it, which is not always easy. You must then try to understand it. To do this, you may have to think about it. The information may require you to make decisions about it or other information. The decisions may require action in the way of a troublesome program of work, or trips or painful interviews. Understanding the information may show that your work was wrong, or that your boss was wrong, or may show that your work was needless. Having information, you must be careful not to lose it. If nothing else, information piles up on your desk—unread. It is a nuisance to have it come to you. It is uncomfortable to have to do anything about it. Finally, if you do try to use the information properly, you may be accused of puttering instead of working. Then in the end, the incorporation of the information into the work you do may often not be noticed or appreciated. Work saved is seldom recognized. Work done—even in duplication—is well paid and rewarded."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bult.37/full
i am a bit surprised and disappointed that this new paper makes no mention of Mooers at all.
A lot of libraries have archives of oral histories, which are a really great window into other people's lives, especially as a correction for assuming you know what someone else is thinking.
https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&type1=Historical%20Speech&...
It seems like there ought to be a good way to categorize these topically, although I'm not sure what that should be.
I really doubt that could have happened, at least in any reasonable amount of time, without the internet.
^The great fallacy of the stereotypical Facebook/television political flame war/shout fest. The result is almost always detrimental to both sides' understanding of eachother.
On a related topic: I hold very liberal views, and I've recently tried to expose myself to more conservative opinions. So far I've just subscribed to /r/Conservative on Reddit, and I've read a few articles on Breitbart and other conservative sites. I also read through some of the comments, which was very frightening. That is not a place for intellectual discussion. I have relatives who often send me articles from http://creation.com, so there's another source of information that I try to avoid..
Also, a few days ago I was on a flight, and the person next to me was telling me about his flat earth beliefs, and a wide variety of other conspiracy theories. He mentioned how Breivik was just a scapegoat, because the government had ordered the killing of those children. And also 9/11 was an inside job, Stalin was a hero, and how The Hunchback of Notre Dame takes place in Saigon, Vietnam. (I believe he came to that conclusion after visiting the Notre-Dame cathedral in Saigon.) It was an interesting 3 hours. At one point he was telling me how the sun is only 50 kilometers wide, and it moves around on giant cables. Also, there are no satellites in space. They are all underground, and that's how GPS works. Also that's why GPS sometimes has problems, because Google's Maps are all wrong. I tried to really understand all of his views, but I can't say they were very compelling. It's strange, because he was a very well-read person, and seemed quite smart, apart from these insane views.
Epistemology matters, and can't be separated from power relations.
The person with the extremely bonkers views is engaging in radical epistemology: those are his facts, because he doesn't trust anyone else's. If you were to dig long enough perhaps you'd find the point in his childhood where he rejected either educational authority or his own experimentation in favour of this fantasy world in which he's the sole arbiter of knowledge.
Haha yeah, I brought that up. His position was that all pilots are involved with the conspiracy. I asked why no-one has said anything yet, and his answer was that they were paid a lot of money. Not only that, but they would be killed, along with their spouses and children.
He also mentioned that there was a force field above the earth, so it was impossible to go into space. And above this forcefield is a layer of water. Something about the "waters above the firmament", which got weirdly Biblical, because he didn't seem to be religious at all.
An easy intro discussion of conservative ideas might be William F. Buckley's older interview show Firing Line, which is all on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/firinglinevideos
Disclosure: I don't consider myself conservative nor liberal.
Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root.
It doesn't say much for the human condition other than, perhaps, we are one good power outage away from being cave men (and women).
Seriously though, I'd say the online landscape is populated by extremes. This applies to all viewpoints and subject, be it religion, politics or what to feed your dogs.
Don't form opinions based on that at all. That's not the real world. The images of both liberals and conservatives being painted online are absolute caricatures of reality. In real life (outside of running into demented cases on a plane) I have found most people agree on, dare I say, most topics at a fundamental level.
The key, in my opinion, is to actively engage in real-life conversations with a wide range of people and avoid echo chambers as much as possible. I can't tell you how to do that because it depends on where you live, where you work and your level of comfort. I'm the kind of person who has no problem whatsoever approaching a total stranger at a coffee shop to have a conversation.
If you watch TV, do watch news networks with different biases. They all have them. Realize they do what they do for ratings and do your best to filter through the nonsense. Nearly every TV news network has a bunch of clowns and a few serious people. Look for the latter and you'll get useful information.
If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter.
I think the key is to be open to information from all sides while being careful to filter out attempts at manipulation and what I call "clowning for ratings". The BBC, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle ought to be part of everyone's news source rotations. And don't forget news from the rest of the American continent.
Yes, being well informed is a job.
Still can't get over your flight experience. I would have politely moved. No, I would have vomited into a bag and then moved.
The problem with your assessment here is that "clowning" is not actually a part of journalism. Fact-finding however, is part of journalism. The OP is making the case that people will actively ignore facts they are receiving when they can't parse the information to match up with their world view. They will dismiss facts as things like conspiracy or what you're calling "clowning for ratings" when they don't like what they are hearing.
Information dissemination that is based on verifiable facts garnered from multiple independent sources... this is the job of journalists. From what I've seen of Fox News, it does not subscribe to the verifiable facts method of journalism and relies instead upon the echo chamber method of repeating something enough times in attempts to make it seem truthful.
In the case of Fox News, the three people I highlighted are, today, not in the "clowning for ratings" category to such an extent that listening to what they have to say isn't a total waste of time. I would not compare them, even for a second, to, say, Hannity (on Fox) or Maddow(MSNBC) or Blitzer (CNN). There's a huge difference between these last three, who are there to stimulate their respective echo chambers and the others.
Yes, you are right, people will actively ignore facts. Yet, the problem is deeper than that because of how the masses are being "managed" by experts. And it is a losing game...for the masses. In many ways it is no different from the expertise and techniques being used to get people to click on ads online.
Given the degree of manipulation we are exposed to today it is important to listen to everyone while avoiding obvious clowns. This should be met with the skepticism necessary to avoid being manipulated, the patience to allow evidence to surface and the research to ensure we don't form conclusions based on manipulation and lies rather than verifiable facts. That, for the masses, is almost impossible. And that's the problem. Because it works, which means the various players will continue to behave as they do and continue to optimize the techniques that produce the desired results: Viewers and Votes.
They "develop and take root" in a distrust of the established truths, which finds an outlet in some niche pet-theory (flat earth, etc) -- and an existential distress and unhapiness in living with them.
Which is not totally unhealthy, as a lot of established truths are either dictums or states of being held by force taken as inevitable/the way things are/gospel, and others are BS spread for profit (and also held as truth).
Of course rejecting those instead of the shape-of-the-earth type beliefs would be better. But it would also be more difficult (try rejecting an established "truth" and see how well it goes. In a repressive government it can even end in execution). Whereas believing in flat-earth at best makes other perceive you as cooky.
As an atheist I have had some interesting conversations with what I would characterize as "intense believers". I have friends who are Born Again Christians. I have endured intense verbal poundings of all kinds at their hands. I even had a case where one of them was yelling and screaming at me in the middle of a parking lot at midnight because I was going on a business trip to Amsterdam the next day and he felt I needed to kneel down and accept Jesus that very minute or I would surely go to hell and condemn my whole family just for setting foot on that city. Nice guy and all, but holy crap!
BTW, I have never done the opposite and tried to convince a believer to become an atheist.
When do you think someone is so far gone that an attempt to engage based on reason is futile?
For example, I would assume most people have been the third party in a situation where two friends are in an argument and want someone to rule on it. Maybe it's just my friends that are that petty, but I end up in this position a lot. As they present it, often I just don't have enough information to make an informed decision; the tidbits they present me are quite obviously the well fought over talking points they devised and I have neither the background nor the education to intelligently comment on the argument most of the time. Relying on my gut sometimes is necessary (issues of emotion, what should person A do, etc), but it's not always the best option.
We can't be 100% ready and educated for every single issue. In fact, constantly changing the issue and bringing up others is a rather devious debate tactic, and also an informal fallacy. It's deceptive, and it can give the illusion that a position is stronger than it really is simply because it was prepared sooner and has more information immediately available than the opposition is able to bring up at that time. It seems strong at first glance, but it doesn't always hold up under scrutiny, but with constantly shifting topics and arguments, it's not possible to give such proper scrutiny.
Avoidance isn't just about self-preservation, it's about being able to rationally interpret the information you are presented. It's why I often find debates online so difficult because the discussion can change so rapidly that it's not possible to give claims reasonable treatment. It's also sometimes why I find it fascinating, because the rapid flow of information is also very addictive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex
"The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms."
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Bonus: "Look at yourself objectively" (by Aaron Swartz )
I believe the Greeks had discussed methods of persuasion to a great extent (as in logos, pathos, ethos) but also when to use which, and the study seems to affirm that shouting crazy hyperbolic slogans to get people emotionally charged is a better strategy for your existing fans than someone on the fence: to convince someone to jump sides, you're better off empathizing with them, bringing up objections slowly, etc.
"The researchers believe understanding when, why and how people avoid information can help governments, firms and organizations reach their audiences effectively without drowning them in unwanted messages".
Proposal to rename the Paper?
How we can help you with your message targeting.
This is one of those silly myths that we for some reason perpetuate, like the old chestnut about people laughing at Columbus because they thought the world was flat.
But denying a scientific fact is not the same. If people would've not just eaten veggies but called news about bad preservatives "fake news", then you would've had a point.
Edit: also, I think this doesn't apply to matters that are of immediate relevance and consequence. So I do think someone like POTUS or a US Senator should stay informed if possible.
Everyone has their own religion, including authors of this article:
> Despite the consequences, information avoidance isn't always a mistake or a reflection of a lazy mind.
> "People do it for a reason," ... "Those who do not take a genetic test can enjoy their life until their illness can't be ignored
Genetic tests can only prove predisposition for illness, something like 20% higher chance compared to other people. Bad test is not a death sentence.