Fake News, Schmake News

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Thanks to OZ friend Nancy Cox for sharing this article about the malleability of memory – “The Pandemic is Messing With Your Memories.”

 The article links the research on memory to current events, discussing how things like the upcoming presidential election, COVID-19, and stress, in general, can affect the way in which we do (or do not) remember things.

Some of the highlights: 

• If you’re gloomy or stressed because of the pandemic, you’re at risk of misremembering. Stress and depression can increase our tendency to create false memories.

• Confirmation bias plays tricks on us. If you feel strongly about a political issue, you’re likely to misremember facts in a way that supports your beliefs, or fall for “fake news” that reinforces your beliefs.  

• Reading a fake news story about problems with a COVID-19 vaccine makes people a little less likely to want to be vaccinated – even if they know it’s fake news.

• We restructure the past based on the present.  Some people are hyper-disgusted right now by people sneezing. That may stick with us in the future – and we may forget that at one time some slob beside us on the bus could have been wiping his nose on his sleeve and we wouldn’t have thought anything of it.

 As one psychologist quoted in the article states, “We don’t get any memory 100% right. That’s actually a feature, not a bug.”  Nonetheless, it can be a problem at times, so being aware of these ways in which memory can trick us is important.