💘WHY DO WE BELIEVE EVERYTHING??💘
HI BESTIES!!! We've got an incredibly exciting new bonus coming your way this week if you're an annual or monthly ✨SYSCA Supporter✨
I'll give you a hint... it's gonna fill your weekends with absolute joy (and fill that painful two-day gap between newsy's...)
Become a 🤪SYSCA supporter🤪 so you don't miss out!!!
Omg so I yesterday I finished 'The Knife Of Never Letting Go' and 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺. SUCH a brilliant read (all my previous brilliant reads are here) but if you're after a Y/A novel that's also suitable for a 24-year-old then THIS IS IT. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger so I'm defs gonna get my hands on the next book - I hope they stay as good!!
Also, yesterday Rubes and I caught up with the wonderful team at The Daily Aus (if you're in Aus and you're a young person then I'm suuuuure you know who I'm talking about) and it was just SO fun to see other young people in this weird social/ news space out there doing it!!!
And finally, my fave trend rn:
Why do we believe everything we read online?
We got new and INCREDIBLE images from space
New episode of Culture Vulture
Turns out Trump pre-planned the march to the capitol
I'm on Harry Styles Baldtok
You can now mark iMessages as unread!!!
Why do we believe everything we read online?
Psychologist and professor Jacqueline Nesi is the legend behind my latest newsy obsession Techno Sapiens!! After I quoted some of her ✨excellent thoughts✨ in here the other day she reached out with a gift for you all!!! SOME EXTREMELY SMART MUSINGS! If you love her work as much as me, you should go and sign up xxx
Why do we believe everything we read online?
We hear a lot about online “misinformation,” or incorrect information presented as fact. We’re exposed to an unbelievable quantity of information each day and some of it—say, our second cousin claiming that vaccines implant microchips, or a headline suggesting Keanu Reeves is immortal—is simply not true.
So then why do we believe it?
Enter: the illusory truth effect, a psychological phenomenon that causes us to judge something as accurate simply because we’ve been exposed to it before.
In a classic study, researchers read college students a series of statements, some true (“The thigh bone is the longest bone in the human body”) and some false (“The capybara is the largest of the marsupials”). A few weeks later, the students came back to the lab to hear more statements, some repeated from the first session, some not.
The result? Students believe that the statements they had heard in prior sessions were more true, whether those statements were actually true or false. And a follow up study shows that this effect holds even for totally implausible statements, like “The tallest person in the world is 35 feet tall” or “The earth is a perfect square.”
Repeated exposure to a statement increases our perception of its truth. But something else is happening when it comes to online misinformation. There’s a common error in our memories called source confusion, when we incorrectly recall the source from which we learned a piece of information. We hear something from a friend, for example, but then later mistakenly believe that we read it in the New York Times.
So, here’s how this might all play out on social media. We’re browsing TikTok and glance at a friend’s recent post claiming that Justin Bieber is a shape-shifting lizard person. A week later, another friend mentions that they’ve been reading about the Justin-Bieber’s-a-reptile theory. Huh, you think, that doesn’t sound totally implausible (illusory truth effect). Didn’t I read about that somewhere? Must have seen it on the news (source confusion). Another week passes. We’re back on TikTok. We see a headline: “Bieber lizard status: confirmed.” This might actually have some truth to it, we think. I’m going to share it. And so on.
So what can we do to combat our tendency to believe false information online?
Recent evidence suggests a solution that sounds too easy to be true: simply ask people to rate the accuracy of an article before they share it. The reason this works? It forces us to slow down.
When we take a second to reflect on the accuracy of a statement, we’re better able to discern between fiction and truth, less likely to share false information, and less likely to encode false information into our memories by nature of simply having been exposed to it.
Sometimes, it turns out, we just need a second to remind ourselves not to believe everything we see online.
We got new and INCREDIBLE images from space
The first images from NASA's James Webb Telescope have just been revealed and holy shit - even as someone who's not a space enthusiast - these are incredible.
Science sure is amazing.
New Episode of Culture Vulture
Doja Cat, Noah Schnapp, & Elvis — open.spotify.com
This week we start off by explaining Doja Cat's weird beef with Noah Schnapp, before launching into our main topic of the day - what was missing from Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie.
Even though Austin Butler slayed, the film still fell short in a few places - we discuss how!
Turns out Trump pre-planned the march to the capitol
The Jan 6 hearings are still going on, and look at what we found out today:
"President Donald J. Trump planned to lead a march of his angry supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 but wanted it to look like a spontaneous decision, people involved in the plans told the committee investigating the mob violence that overtook the Capitol."
According to documents from the National Archives,Trump reviewed a tweet that said:
“I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!”
Note: This tweet was never sent, but you can literally see the intention in the draft. Ugh
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Become a supporter to get access to all of these perks🥺
Harry Styles BaldTok
I don't have a huge story to go under this headline, I just thought I should tell you that a LOT of my TikTok feed rn is 'Harry Styles is balding' videos - they're all a #joke, but if you're also on this side of TikTok then I'm sure you also get a good giggle out of them.
You can now mark iMessages as unread!!!
iOS16 is bringing all us forgetful iPhone users a #gamechanger - IT'S GOING TO LET US MARK MESSAGES AS UNREAD! If you're like me, then you'll often open a message, need to think about a response, and then plan to respond later but start doing a bunch of different tasks and simply ✨forget.✨ Besties, this update is for us.
Brb, updating my phone and changing my life.
And finally, some Love Island tweets:
[tweet https://twitter.com/ikennaekwonna/status/1546235423894257665]
Doja Cat, Noah Schnapp, & Elvis (Culture Vulture)
Emmys 2022: Succession leads the way with 25 nominations (The Guardian)
I AM *REELING* AFTER FINDING OUT $TWINKCOIN TWINKIES AREN’T A JOKE (Elite Daily)
Our Love Island Debrief (Culture Vulture)
SYSCA playlist (✨Supporters only✨)
Our HUGE SYSCA reading list! (✨Supporters only✨)