Illusion of truth

“Newyork is a large city in the United States.”

“The Moon revolves around the earth.”

“ A chicken has four legs.”

In all these cases you quickly retrieved a lot of facts.

Note however that the statement “A chicken has three legs.” is more false than “A chicken has four legs.” Your associative machinery slows the judgment of the latter sentence by delivering the fact that many animals have four legs.

Take a selfie that shows a front view of your face and print it. Then, go back to the selfie on your phone and edit it to show a reverse image (so that the right and left sides of your faces are interchanged), and print that also.

You will have a pair of pictures- one that shows you as actually you look (the second) & one that shows your reversed image (the first).

Now decide which version of your face you like better and ask a good friend to make the choice too.

If you are like the majority of the people, You should notice something odd: your friend will prefer the true image, but you will prefer the reverse image. Why because you both will be responding favorably to the more familiar face- your friend to the one the world sees and you to the transposed one you find in the mirror.

Often we don't realize our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it.

Social media is an attention economy where providers of content compete for user engagement amidst an overload of information. Valuable content is, therefore, that which can capture the most “eyeballs” and clicks. It can easily become a conduit to showcase wealth, power, importance, status, and good charm. Images and videos can present a highlight reel of positive achievements — even when the negative trumps the good.

The move to online news has led to a sharp change in the incentives of mainstream media. They now prioritize metrics like website traffic, page views, and trending topics (and have the analytical tools to measure them accurately).

In the age of fake news, internet bots, and media hogging politicians, it’s alarming to think that people come to believe the communications they are exposed to most frequently, as it gives contemporary resonance to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebel’s assertion:

“ Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”