The Biggest Fake News of All - Page 36

C2 Proficiency · Gapped Text · Ready for C2 Proficiency Workbook, Macmillan

You are going to read a newspaper article. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A–H the one which fits each gap (1–7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

But while our misperceptions are long-standing, it's also true that we are living in particularly dangerous times for a reality-based view of the world. The way we consume information has changed beyond recognition.

The explanation for such errors is not just this self-editing of our past. There is also an evolutionary element to our focus on negatives in the present. Negative information tends to be more urgent, even life-threatening: our cave-dwelling ancestors needed to take note when warned about a lurking sabre-toothed tiger (and those who didn't were edited out of the gene pool).

This false sense of everything going downhill points to one of the main explanations for why we're so often so wrong – we naturally suffer from 'rosy retrospection'. We edit out bad things from our past.

You may ask whether we should really be so content about what humanity has achieved. But as our misperception studies show time and again, the real danger is the opposite. We need to counter the sense that all is already lost, because hope is essential to encourage action – and a vital defence against extremists who say things are so bad we need to rip it all up.

This is not a dumb fault in our brain – it helps with our sense of well-being and self-esteem to remember things with a rose-tint that might not always be completely accurate.

Facebook's own experiments show that when they mix up our feeds with contrary views, we spend less time on the platform, and so they make less money from us: showing us what we want to see is at the very core of our new information system.

But the truth is our misperceptions of social and political realities are as long-standing as we can measure. Studies from the 1940s in the US show people were just as wrong on questions like who's in charge of government and unemployment rates as they are now.

But just as many show that lots of people are willing to listen, and shift their views, particularly when we can get in there first. We are not all automatons, slaves to our tribal beliefs.

We also might think we're losing faith in the establishment: 68% in Britain believe we trust politicians to tell the truth less than we did 30 years ago. But that's not actually true either: we've been tracking trust in politicians since 1983, and it was just as woeful back then as now.

Consider an experiment by US academics about how we remember our holidays. Holidaymakers were interviewed before, during and after their break. Most followed the same pattern of excited anticipation, then mild annoyance during their holidays and disappointment after (we've all been there). But people's views became increasingly favourable the further in the past the holiday was: the memory of sunsets on the beach blocked out the kids being sick in the car.

When it comes to negative information, however, our brains handle it differently and store it more accessibly. We react more strongly to negative images and process them with more intensity in different parts of the brain. This doesn't mean the media play no role in twisting our perceptions – just that to some extent we get the media our brains demand because of the way they've always worked.

We are able to filter and tailor what we see in a way never before known – and unseen algorithms do it on our behalf too. Surveillance is the business model behind our apparently free internet – but that makes confirmation bias (our deep-seated desire to see only things that we agree with) its currency.

So what can we do? The first point is to hold on to the importance and power of a shared understanding of facts with all the energy we can. Eye-catching studies suggest that giving people the correct information can backfire and reinforce their misperceptions.

At a more personal level, our starting point should be to think that things are better than our initial instincts suggest. Hans Rosling and the Gapminder Foundation have made this point brilliantly on global issues like extreme poverty – but the same applies to myriad domestic concerns.

This is not the same as saying that everything is perfect. But we need to be deeply suspicious of those playing on our biases to undermine our hold on reality and convince us that we are living in a new dystopian era. That really is fake news.

Do we really live in a new era of 'fake news' and 'post-truth'? Well, it is certainly true that the public in Britain get an impressive array of basic facts about our country very wrong. People also think our grip on reality is loosening: our new survey across 26 countries shows that 60% of participants think people don't care about facts any more, they just believe what they want. The temptation is to blame our increasingly sensationalist media, social media and tribal politicians. ___ We also might think we're losing faith in the establishment: 68% in Britain believe we trust politicians to tell the truth less than we did 30 years ago. But that's not actually true either: we've been tracking trust in politicians since 1983, and it was just as woeful back then as now. ___ Consider an experiment by US academics about how we remember our holidays. Holidaymakers were interviewed before, during and after their break. Most followed the same pattern of excited anticipation, then mild annoyance during their holidays and disappointment after (we've all been there). But people's views became increasingly favourable the further in the past the holiday was: the memory of sunsets on the beach blocked out the kids being sick in the car. ___ When it comes to negative information, however, our brains handle it differently and store it more accessibly. We react more strongly to negative images and process them with more intensity in different parts of the brain. This doesn't mean the media play no role in twisting our perceptions – just that to some extent we get the media our brains demand because of the way they've always worked. ___ We are able to filter and tailor what we see in a way never before known – and unseen algorithms do it on our behalf too. Surveillance is the business model behind our apparently free internet – but that makes confirmation bias (our deep-seated desire to see only things that we agree with) its currency. ___ So what can we do? The first point is to hold on to the importance and power of a shared understanding of facts with all the energy we can. Eye-catching studies suggest that giving people the correct information can backfire and reinforce their misperceptions. ___ At a more personal level, our starting point should be to think that things are better than our initial instincts suggest. Hans Rosling and the Gapminder Foundation have made this point brilliantly on global issues like extreme poverty – but the same applies to myriad domestic concerns. ___ This is not the same as saying that everything is perfect. But we need to be deeply suspicious of those playing on our biases to undermine our hold on reality and convince us that we are living in a new dystopian era. That really is fake news.

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