Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and social media algorithms add fuel to the fire. Stephen Dubner investigates.
I'd like you to imagine, and this shouldn't be very hard, but imagine you were in the midst of a growing pandemic.
A 12th fatality has now been reported here in the United States.
Er, doctors saying, we are on the.
Verge of a medical disaster.
And let's say you want to be as informed as possible.
The daily coronavirus death toll in the United States might hit 3000 by early June.
The coronavirus, forcing millions more Americans into.
Virtual lockdown crisis, could dovetail quickly into a political crisis.
And now let's say you are an economics professor watching this news for hours a day.
How does the information you are getting add to your understanding of the pandemic?
I honestly thought I was going crazy.
The economist in question here is Bruce Sacerdot at Dartmouth College.
I'm very utilitarian, and I was looking for useful information and hence my frustration, because I felt like it was more advertorial and entertainment.
When Sacerdot says he was looking for more useful information, what does that mean?
What I would be looking for is, okay, there was this new study done, here's what they found.
Here's what this means for the pandemic.
Here's what this means for when we can get back to work.
But instead it tends to be a lot of angst and bemoaning the numbers, even if they hadn't changed or had.
Gotten better, it wasn't that Sassidot wanted to pretend that everything was fine.
I mean, this thing killed more people than most of the wars we've been in.