Category: Misinformation 101

Phew… that was just the first few minutes of an influencer’s day! 😮‍💨 

Elaborate morning routines can look glamorous, but they’re often not backed by science! For a deeper dive on each step, check out our sources below.

Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that happens when we focus – sometimes unintentionally – only on the people or things that “made it through” a situation, and ignore those that didn’t. When that happens, we get a distorted picture of reality (1).

This bias shows up in many ways. Someone might say, “My great-uncle smoked his whole life and lived to 90, so smoking can’t be that bad.” But the people who smoked and died young aren’t here to tell their story – their stories are missing. The same thing happens when people say, “I didn’t get the vaccine and I was fine,” without considering the many who weren’t so lucky (1,2,3).

Survivorship bias can also affect research (1,3). For example, a study suggested that older adults who drank more wine lived longer than those who drank less or not at all – implying that drinking wine helps people live longer (4). But this can be misleading. Many people who were harmed by heavy drinking may have already died before the study started, so they weren’t counted. Others might have quit drinking because of health problems and ended up in the “non-drinker” group, making the drinkers look healthier by comparison (3,4,5).

Another great example comes from how the American military decided where to reinforce WWII airplanes. If they had only considered the bullet holes on the planes that returned, they would have missed a crucial piece of insight – those areas weren’t fatal. The real areas that needed reinforcement, were the places where bullets hit and caused planes not to return (6).

When we only look at people who completed a treatment or succeeded in a program, we miss those who dropped out or didn’t make it. That can lead us to believe something works better than it actually does (1,7,8,9).

This matters because it can lead us to make decisions based on incomplete data (1). Looking at both successes and setbacks helps us see the full picture – and make better choices.

Most Canadians and Americans are concerned about misinformation (1,2). But earlier this year, a U.S. Presidential Action ended National Science Foundation (NSF) support for misinformation research, claiming that it interferes with free speech (3-6). 

This research is important, and restricting it can cause harm.

Individually, misinformation can cause loss of trust, confusion, stress, and lead to physical harm (7-17). For society, misinformation can create economic and political distress, prevent effective emergency responses after crises, threaten public health, and create or worsen violence and discrimination (7,8,12,15-25).

Misinformation has broad impact, and is studied by many disciplines including computer science, economics, politics, law, and social science (16,26). This research helps us understand how false information spreads, how it can harm us, and what we can do about it (16,26,27). Cuts to this research may mean fewer solutions to the problems created by misinformation.

The statements from the White House and the NSF claim that misinformation research hurts free speech (3,4). This is not true. Many evidence-based responses to misinformation involve empowering people to navigate the internet better without removing any posts (17,28,29). Moderating false information online – which is supported by most Americans, though support has declined slightly over the past few years – is only one tool in the toolbelt (30-32).