Probably the topic which has interested me the most over the past few years has been the concept of perception. One typical example of this perception is the number of deaths caused per year by coconuts. It’s 150.
You probably had no idea how many deaths were caused per year by coconuts. But now that you do, I don’t think anyone is going to pass up a beach trip to Hawaii because they are scared of coconuts hitting them on the head. They are going to have a damn fun time on their journey and go from there.
Think anyone has ever passed up a swim on that beach because of sharks? Of course. But guess what? There are only 6 deaths caused annually by sharks.
Now if you’re technical, you may start arguing that the amount of time the human population spends under coconut trees is higher than the amount of time we are in the ocean. And that death by a shark is a higher probability based on that time difference… but let’s move past that.
This issue is that this fear is unwarranted. It is manufactured. It is a perception that was drilled into humans since the dawn the first Jaws movie. Small fears like this aren’t the best thing in the world. But they aren’t the cause of any major issues with our population.
Oft, these fears are blamed on journalists and other folks in the media industry who are trying to dig up the juiciest story for them to publish. A shark attack is much sexier than death by coconut. And let’s be honest, if your job was to choose a story, which would you choose?
This issue is 1000% greater than just the media world though. Let’s take a second to run through a thought experiment. Imagine you were to do a Google search on “what causes the most deaths in the world.” What if that top little sliver of information said sharks? The one that gives you a summary before you even open the article? What would happen? How would people change their actions? What would change in regular communication between people? Perhaps even more importantly… How would the tourism economy of Hawaii change?
Google works way too well too well for something like this to happen. Or… does it? This is perhaps one of my favorite comics.
