One Day at a Time

How Our Brains Get Tricked by Misinformation

Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty, by psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer

Feeling news fatigue or losing hold of knowing who to trust?

You’re not alone. Having too many options of what to read or watch mixed with bursts of excitement can trick your brain into spreading false information and leave you feeling burned out. Fortunately, there is something you can do about it.

Let’s explore.

Margaret Sullivan, a columnist for the Washington Post, recently wrote that the media must stop live broadcasting the president’s daily briefings. She argued that he is spreading misinformation and using these briefings as a substitute for his now defunct campaign rallies. NPR member station KUOW in Seattle did just that.

One KUOW listener equated the briefings to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats during World War II and called the move censorship. While this pandemic does feel like a war, NPR rightly pointed out that back in the 1940s, newspapers and radio were the only sources of news. Today, there are so many ways to spread information that one source choosing not to broadcast a story doesn’t block the information from getting out.

Not only is it nearly impossible to block information, but just about any sensational story can go viral these days — mushrooming out of control within hours. If we aren’t careful, our energy can get misdirected toward those mushroom clouds and cause us to run around screaming that the sky is falling instead of keeping calm and carrying on as the Londoners did in World War II.

How can we figure out what information to trust and what information to ignore? How can we learn what stories to keep our distance from so we don’t get infected by fear and accidentally spread panic? And what can we do to help keep hope alive and possibly come out of this time in a different place as humans?

Here’s the science.

Just like a virus, misinformation spreads by human contact. Viruses spread through physical contact while information spreads through a different type of contact, one that is immune to social distancing. Why is misinformation so much more contagious than accurate information?

First, the internet is a petri dish for the growth and spread of fake news. Without an energy source, an organism can’t survive. Viruses need hosts so they can replicate and spread. This is also true for information. In this case, we are the growth medium: We feed the sources by reposting or retweeting something we’ve seen or read. Yet, what gets us to feed or spread one story over another?

When we read a headline, our primitive brains assume the source is credible, and our modern brains have to come in and explain to our ancient brains what fake news is.

This is where a second critical element comes in: being able to tell the difference between important and dangerous information. Our survival brains are set up to trigger dopamine firing when we learn something new. For our ancient ancestors, dopamine firing literally helped them remember where food was so they could go back and find it again. It also helped them remember where danger was so they could avoid it.

Today we all know where our refrigerators are, but when we go on the internet, our brains have trouble differentiating what is a real danger and what isn’t. When you go on social media, what stories get your attention? The “stay calm and carry on” stories or the “OMG, you won’t believe what just happened” ones? To your brain, it’s a no brainer. Why? Because our brains are set up to fire dopamine when something really big or unexpected happens.

And the bigger or more unexpected the event — positive or negative — the bigger the dopamine bang in our brain. That’s why you can remember your wedding or where you were on 9/11 but might forget a friend’s birthday.

You can see how this applies to the spread of information. The bigger the headline, the more you pay attention because your brain thinks, “Hey, this must be important—you might be in danger” and fires a big dopamine burst. Back in ancient times, we were the ones gathering that information, so excitement equaled accurate information: We either saw it for ourselves and conveyed it to our tribe, or someone we trusted saw it with their own eyes and conveyed it to us.

Today, when we read a headline, our primitive brains assume the source is credible, and our modern brains have to come in and explain to our ancient brains what fake news is. Ancient brain, yes, someone can be telling you something that helps their own survival, whether politically or financially, and not yours. Ancient brain, welcome to the modern world. Yes, it sucks when we’re not all in this together to help each other survive.

There is one more piece to this.

Let’s recall our survival brains for a moment. When there is an abundance of food, our brains get overwhelmed. If we have to remember all of the food sources, we are more likely to get confused and lost along the way. Where was that food? Was I supposed to turn left or right at that tree? Just like food, when there is an overabundance of modern-day news sources and we’re bombarded by information on social media, our brains simply shut down. At times like these, we can even feel exhausted and hopeless.

So how can we leverage this information to keep hope for the future and faith in each other? I asked my wife, who is a college professor and Bible scholar, about this. The Bible is full of fear and hope but ultimately is about faith. My wife said, “I don’t think you can have hope unless you trust in something. Hope is like faith. It’s a concept for things that haven’t yet happened.”

She is touching on something really important. Roosevelt was a credible and singular news source during World War II. We could trust him because he really cared about the people and the fate of the nation. When everyone is competing for our attention, people resort to bigger claims and better stories to try to get our brains to fire dopamine so that we turn toward them for guidance. When the stories are big enough, our thinking brains go offline, and our fear response kicks in. The more this happens, the more our brains get overwhelmed. We throw up our hands in frustration or defeat, say forget it, and lose hope.

“I don’t think you can have hope unless you trust in something. Hope is like faith. It’s a concept for things that haven’t yet happened.”

Here’s one simple tip to help keep you grounded when your heart starts racing. I learned this great acronym to practice when I’m excited or afraid: WAIT or why am I talking. WAIT helps you pause before proceeding. You can apply this to texting (why am I texting) and social media (why am I tweeting). Write it on a sticky note and put it on your computer screen or fridge to help you remember to stop, take a deep breath, ask yourself if this is really a credible news source, and then see if what you’re about to write or repost is going to help us all or distract us from the task at hand: getting through this together.

I’ll end on a personal note. My wife and I rewatched one of our favorite movies last night, The Shawshank Redemption. In the movie, there are two main characters, Andy Dufresne the banker, and Ellis Redding, known simply as Red. They are both serving life sentences for murder. In one scene, Andy says to Red in relation to his jailors: “There are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. There are places they can’t get to, that they can’t touch.” “What are you talking about?” asks Red. “Hope,” Andy replies. Red pauses and then pontificates, “Let me tell you something, my friend: Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Years later, when Andy breaks out of prison, he hides a note for Red that Red will only find if he gets paroled. In it, Andy writes, “Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

So today, in addition to social distancing, practice some good brain hygiene as well. Practice “internet distancing” when you come across something that shocks your brain into survival mode. Create space for your thinking brain to come back online by using the WAIT acronym. Check in with yourself to make sure you are only passing on credible and helpful information instead of feeding rumors — and this includes not reposting outrage. Saying “I can’t believe X did Y” still feeds the cycle of negative attention. Spreading news of hope helps everyone’s mental hygiene.

Onward together. I’ll have more to share tomorrow. If you’re interested in a video recording of this material, I’ve created one here.