WEBVTT - Mean World Syndrome 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.360 Works dot com. Hey you're welcome to Stuff to blow 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:15.240 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb. You know I'm 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.840 Julie Douglas. Julie. What do you fear the most? Dear? 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:24.599 The most fear dear? Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Yeah, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.960 that's the fear itself, right, might as well fear it. 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:32.440 Sure it's incapacitating. Yeah, so not like wild dogs or anything. No, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:39.159 no griffins. You um. Probably I probably fear like all 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.479 the mundane stuff now that we'll get into in a bit. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:44.159 Used to it was alien abductions though when I was 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.000 when I was like a junior high kid, I was 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.080 terrified of alien abductions. And then I went through like 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.400 a one week phase or maybe it was a month 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.520 in high school where I was terrified of car rex 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.840 Like I was just convinced that if my family got 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.400 in a car, we'd go out. You know, we're driving 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.080 to look at Christmas lights, and I was like, this 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.880 is a needless rest. We were clearly all going to perish. 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.360 And then it passed. Is this because you had seen 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.680 some some sort of public service announcement driving I bet 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.480 so I imagine that both of these fears were directly 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.880 related to the stuff that I was absorbing, be it 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.560 unsolved mysteries in the case of the alien abductions, or yes, 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.200 some special about highway safety in the case of the 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.000 vehicle fear. And you know now that I think about it, 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.000 when I was around eight years old, I saw a 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.959 documentary on an atom bomb, and I remember having nightmares 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.440 about being with my family on a cliff and watching 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:39.920 the sun melt and everything around me just perish. Um. So, yeah, 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.160 I think if you guys are listening alone, you're going 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.039 to start to see this link here between media consumption 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.559 and how it informs our fears. Indeed, we're talking about 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:55.480 something called mean world syndrome, which is which is a 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.880 fascinating theory they were going to unwrap for you here, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.600 and it it really God, it's really really gets its 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.200 tentacles into just about everything in our daily life. It does. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.399 And before we explore that a bit more, we want 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.640 to thank listener Joseph who wrote us about our episode 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.880 The Dark and sent us a link to a survey 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:18.760 about what Americans fear most, which kicked off this whole 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:23.240 exploration of the mean world syndrome, which in which there 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.040 is also a documentary. It's a two thousand and ten documentary, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.080 and we thought we would just pull a couple of 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.280 quotes from it. Yeah. This comes from George Gebner, professor 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.400 of communications and founder of cultivation theory UM, died in 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.000 two thousand five. He says, most of us live rather 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.040 insulated lives, and we don't meet too many people of 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.959 other groups, of other races, other ethnic backgrounds than our own. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.639 Most of what we know about other races, other ethnic 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.920 groups we know from television, and from television we get 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.560 some very peculiar types of information. Now they interview a 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.480 bunch of other people, including Michael Morgan and marsh mcclehen, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.080 who said, on the difficulty of measuring the effect of 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.440 media on views perceptions quote, it's like the fish in 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.160 the water. We don't know who discovered water, but we 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.680 know it wasn't the fish. A pervasive medium, a pervasive 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:18.720 environment is always beyond perception end quote. So that I 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.679 think is the underlying conundrum here. We know that we're 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.880 consuming media, UM, we know that we're consuming a lot 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.960 more than we used to and in various different ways, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.120 but we're not entirely sure of the effects, but we 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.040 do have Gardner's research to give us a clue of 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.800 houses actually informing our worldview. Yeah, in worldview here is 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.040 key because because we've hit on many times in this podcast, Uh, 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:52.360 reality is different for everyone. There's certainly the subjective reality 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.120 and an objective reality, but everyone's worldview is a little different, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.760 and everyone's everyone's model of reality in which we house 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.960 ourselves you a little different and what what we build 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.160 it out? After? What degree does media play into our 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:11.160 construction of this particular world? Does objectivity really exist when 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:16.080 you're trying to filter information through your own experiences and ideas? 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.279 And that's a bit of what we'll get into today. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.520 But first we want to talk about this two thousand 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:27.880 and fourteen Chapman University survey and it was a nationwide 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.159 year long survey by the way UM. It was a 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.479 poll of fifteen hundred Americans concerning their fears and concerns. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.080 And Dr Christopher Bator, who led this effort, said, what 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.960 we learned through this initial survey that we had to 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:46.000 phrase the questions according to fear versus concerned to capture 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.080 the information correctly. So that's how we are presenting it, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.240 and indeed that is how they parse it out. And 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.080 the reason for that is because fear and worry, although 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.320 very closely related, have a kind of temporal difference, at 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.880 least in my mind, uh it does. Fear feels immediate 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:07.320 and worrying feels like a sort of existential threat, something 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.039 that might happen in the in the future, whereas fear 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.320 as the immediate future. Yeah, worry has kind of, you know, 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.920 a certain amount of inevitability about it. I find like 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.839 I worry about the things that will come to pass 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.960 or may come to pass. But fear are sort of 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.800 the the oddball things that might pop up on the 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.159 on the on the dice roll of life, you know, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:33.800 the more random things. Right. Yeah. So top five things 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.760 that Americans fear the most. This is what came out 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.720 of this survey. The number one fear walking alone at 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.320 night okay, very primal, okay. Number two becoming the victim 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:50.000 of identity theft, very modern. Number three safety on the internet. 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.800 Number four being the victim of a mass or random shooting, 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.320 which ties to what you said in terms of fear 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:01.960 and fear acts of randomness, right, And number five sticking 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:06.240 out like a sore thumb in this list. Public speaking, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.320 That's that seems kind of crazy to me, because like, 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.440 I'm not a fan of public speaking. I kind of 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.840 view it it's kind of like vomiting while I'm doing it. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:16.640 I dislike it, But I don't spend the rest of 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.000 my life worrying about the neck or fearing the next 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.840 time I'm going to vomit or have to speak publicly, Like, yeah, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:23.919 it's going to happen. What can I do about it? 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.680 And you feel spent afterward? Right, You feel like you've 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.279 got a blank slate to build upon. Um. But yeah, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.640 I think that speaks a lot to how much people 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.040 really dislike getting up and talking in front of other people. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:38.640 And I was thinking about that, was like, what does 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.200 that mean. That means that they're afraid of failing and 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.040 they're afraid of being judged, And that all makes sense. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.240 But then I thought why, though, why so? Why so 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.039 common a fear? And I thought, I wonder if it's 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.160 because in this day and age, public speaking isn't just 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.600 speaking to two people in the room. It is now 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.719 one person who is recording the video of it and 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.880 putting it online so that two million other people can 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.039 see it and judge you. So just recording a video 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.559 for YouTube could be considered public speaking, Yes, I think 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.640 I think that it could be considered that way. It's 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.080 just who is my audience? What are they going to 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.280 think of me? Am I going to fail or succeed 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.440 at this? But that's that's of interest. But what about 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:28.560 worry or concern? All right? Well, the Chapman Survey for 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.640 worrying and concern breaks it down as follows. Number one 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:36.960 having identity stolen on the Internet, number two corporate surveillance 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.000 of Internet activity, number three running out of money in 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.679 the future for government surveillance of Internet activity, and number 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.400 five becoming ill or sick. So here we see kind 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.400 of another lopsided array of things here, because becoming ill 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.640 and sick, that's timeless like and reasonable that we're all 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.000 going to worry about what's going to happen when some 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.240 illness hits us, perhaps something we have little or no 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.000 ability to uh to to prevent um. And then running 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:04.600 out of money in the future, I think we can 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.000 all relate to that to some point or another. You 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.120 know that, what to what extent will I not be 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.880 able to feed myself? How's myself feed myself, feed the 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.320 people I love. How's the people I love in the future. Yeah, 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:21.440 and again this list feels more incremental than immediate. Yeah, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:22.920 it's like what will what will it be like for 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.120 my future self? Will that will my future self have 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.320 to deal with these various things. Whereas those fears like 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.000 the two that caught out to me the most walking 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.200 alone at night, Uh, certainly in safety on the internet, 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.840 Like those are two that do you think about all 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.080 the time when you're when you're in those environments. I 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.640 don't know if I would say I outright have fear 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.199 about safety on the internet, but certainly walking down the 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.560 dark street, I mean, you just can't help it, but 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.559 fear a little feel a little apprehensive. Well in terms 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.839 of internet security too and finances. I feel like it's 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.000 a given these days that at some point your information 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.760 is going to be accessed or compromised. So I can 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.720 see how that's also in the minds of people. Another 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.720 thing that the survey revealed, And remember the survey covered 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:10.360 only people, so the survey isn't exhaustive, but it did 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.000 reveal that a decent amount of people who were surveyed 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:18.240 exhibit magical thinking. So more specifically, these sort of causal 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.840 relationships between actions and events that are not based on 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:27.160 reason and observation. So, for example, in this study, more 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:32.199 than of participants believe that Bigfoot is a real creature, 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.200 about half believe that Satan causes most evil in the world. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.040 Pin it on Satan, Okay, and uh think they can 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.040 influence the world with physical thought. I eat positive thoughts 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:51.719 all of the book The Secret. So this one is 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.680 a little trickier though, right, because as you had pointed 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:56.560 out earlier when we were talking about this, do they 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.920 go specifically into like what do they mean by effect 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.080 things with positive thoughts? Because there's, um, you know, one 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.079 column where it's like, yeah, I think I'm gonna do 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.400 great on this test. I'm well prepared. I'm gonna just 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:14.000 harness my positivity, and the other one is I'm just 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.000 gonna stare at the answers and by magical thinking, I'm 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:21.400 going to get the right one. Yeah, there's there's certainly 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.840 a difference between just going into something with a positive 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.800 mindset and trying to manifest uh situations in life just 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:33.079 through pure thought. Um, it's interesting. I would I would certainly, 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.520 you know, I certainly believe in that to a certain 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.360 extent um, you know, just the power of positive thinking 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.840 on the whole Satan Bigfoot thing. I actually think most 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.439 of the evil caused in the world is due to 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.080 big Foot. So I actually that's where I fall in 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:49.640 that line. Do you think you think he's kind of 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.319 like the shadow of Satan character? Yeah, yeah, I think so. 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.959 I think he's Satan's furry agent on Earth. All right. So, 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:01.160 I think what this data is bareing out or are 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.440 bearing is that when it comes to cold, hard calculation 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.840 about the physical world around us, we're not always engaging 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:13.760 in critical objective thought. And this is when perception can 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.160 falter exactly, and it falters along lines that have nothing 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.439 to do with you know, skunk gates and devils. Uh. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.360 The Chapman survey here also found that the majority of 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.160 majority of Americans not only actively fear crimes like child abduction, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.000 gang violence, sexual assault, and an other sort of you know, 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:37.000 often sensationalized crimes of this this nature, they also believe 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.480 these crimes had increased over the past twenty years. Now. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.480 This is particularly interesting when you look at statistical data 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.120 from police and FBI records that actually showed that crime 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.200 has decreased in America over the past two decades. The 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.440 fact that that often often gets criminologists in trouble when 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.080 they when they start pointing these these facts out when 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.160 they say, I mean that the crime rate has actually 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.040 gone down, no matter what it feels like. And certainly 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.319 you know if you if you, if your life has 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.320 been touched by by violent crime of one type or another, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.880 that that that those those statistics are going to seem 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.920 less reliable. But likewise, what you have, what if your 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.120 life hasn't been directly touched by this violence, but you 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.040 simply are privy to it on a daily basis through 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.679 your consumption of media. Well, and I think what colors 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.160 this perception to that violence has gone up is that 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.680 you often hear the that the United States, of all 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.800 the developed countries, has one of the highest homicide rates. 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.240 And then if you look at an FBI two thousand 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.439 and eleven statistic of the more than twelve thousand homicides, 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.760 you'll see that seventy of them were caused by firearms. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.600 It was homicide by firearms. So it kind of there's 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.440 there's a there's an actual support of real threat there. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.920 But then there's the overall statistics which would tell you 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.800 on a day to day basis us that crime has 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.800 actually decreased. So it gets kind of sticky with this, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.400 especially when you bring firearms into the equation. And if 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.320 you guys are interested in that, um, we encourage you 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.120 to check out the article from The Atlantic. It's called 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.840 quote gun Violence in America, the thirteen key questions with 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.240 thirteen concercise answers. It's by Jonathan Straight And that'll give 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.439 you a bit more information on the gun factor, which 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.880 is very nuanced, complex and more than we can bite 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.240 off in this particular episode. Yeah, and I'll include a 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.520 link to that article on the landing page for this 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.000 episode is stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Alright. So, 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.560 some of the other contributing factors to perceived fear, according 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.800 to the Chapman University survey, is that people with lower 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.559 levels of education will exhibit significantly higher levels of fear 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.680 regarding a bunch of stuff like personal safety, their future, 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.640 running out of money, getting sick, Internet usage again, identity, theft, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:10.440 criminal victimization, government, the fear of government being oppressive, and 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.960 so on and so forth, immigration, natural disasters, and man 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:19.600 made disasters. And they found that watching television talk shows 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:25.080 in particular UH with a high frequency was strongly related 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.800 to fear, and not surprisingly, a studied diet of two 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.600 crime true crime TV shows affects level of fear and individuals. 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.880 And they have just more and more data on this. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:37.720 If you want to check it out, The actually break 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.240 down fear factors into gender, political affiliation, race, and so 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.200 on and so forth. So if you want to see 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.880 more about that, definitely check out the University of Chapman's 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.560 Fear Survey of Americans. And the reason we we brought 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.760 out all of this data for you guys is that 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.920 we felt like it was a good basis to explore 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:01.840 the overall concept of mean world syndrome. Yes, mean world syndrome, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.160 which stems from cultivation theory. Now, cultivation theory is a 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.120 social theory developed by George Gebner, who we mentioned earlier 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.920 and Larry Gross from the University of Pennsylvania in the 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.600 mid nineties sixties, and it examines the long term effects 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.080 of television. So in essence, the idea here is that 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.080 TV is cultivating our culture. UH think of you know, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.640 Shepherd Fairies, Obey graff d. I think of John Carpenter 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.680 as they live with the the the the the the 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:34.040 glasses that reveal what television is really informing onto the 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.600 minds of the public um. And you have a pretty 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.040 good idea about what's going on here. The TV is 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.640 feeding your brain. It's informing our minds, both explicitly and 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.640 implicitly on who and what we are, what sort of 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:50.360 world we live in. So it's cultivating the viewers conceptions 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:55.960 of social reality. Now, Groner and Gross study television programming 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.120 for twenty two years, and each year they randomly selected 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.240 a week in real hoarded prime time programming as well 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.600 as children's weekend programming, and they identify the quantity of 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:08.640 violence and programs, and they found them to be pretty 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.800 stable overtime. For instance, dramas that feature violence averaged five 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:18.720 violent acts per viewing hour. However, they found some inequalities 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:24.680 in victimhood, with older people, women, and minorities particularly at 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.600 risk in these acts of violence. So even though minorities 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.000 were underrepresented on television, when they did appear, they were 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.040 much more likely to be victims of violence. Now, to 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.120 analyze the effects of the violence on the minds of 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.360 the participants of Governor and Gross correlated the data from 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.840 the content analysis of television were survey data from people 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.320 who were classified based on the amount of time they 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.920 spent watching TV. So of course you've got two groups here, 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.760 heavy watchers of TV four plus hours and light watchers 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.320 less than two hours. And using a survey he targeted 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.640 four attitudes. So the first one was chances of involvement 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.600 with violence. So what they found is that light viewers 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.000 predicted their weekly odds of being involved in violence or 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.840 something like one in one hundred, while heavy viewers said 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.440 it was more like one in ten. Then the second 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.680 attitude was fear of walking alone at night. Women were 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.080 more afraid than men, but both sexes who were heavy 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.960 viewers overestimated criminal activity, believing it to be ten times 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:31.560 more than figures actually indicate. The third was perceived activity 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.919 of police. Heavy viewers believe that about five percent of 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.959 societies involved with law enforcement, and in comparison, the light 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.360 viewers thought it looks like one which is about right 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.400 and general mistrust of people. That's the fourth attitude. People 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.360 who were heavy viewers tended to see other people's actions 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.280 and motives more negatively. And if you drill down a 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.600 little bit further into griner and grasses work, you'll find 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.280 that they were looking at these very specific behaviors emerging, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.200 and they define them as mainstreaming, which is the process 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.240 by which heavy viewing of television resulted in the similarity 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.200 of perspective among viewers. And it didn't matter what they're 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.479 their socio economic class was, or their education, those who 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.720 were heavy TV viewers had this perspective. They all shared 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.600 that there's a sort of mainstreaming of what they thought 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:31.280 was going on. And then something called resonance, which was 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:36.240 that if someone had a real life violent incident that 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.240 happened to them, well, that was amplifying their experience and 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.960 making it feel like it was more prevalent. And certainly 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.119 the yeah, the resonance residence makes perfect sense. You have 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.560 something like this, it touches your real life. It's going 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:54.120 to completely color your perception of reality, even and even 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.199 the even the news that you happen to catch on 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.560 in the evening. Yeah, because you could in effect be 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:05.280 experiencing that over and over again via these different situations, 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.160 whether it's a report on the news or it's um 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.600 some sort of c s i UH scenario. But the 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.719 thing about this mean world syndrome is that it is 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:19.240 not just about violence, it actually extends out further into 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.960 the world. It's tendrils go a bit more into the 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.119 social fabric. Indeed, yeah, I mean it's not television is 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.119 not a media or not only cultivating our ideas about 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.959 about what's going on in the world. They're cultivating our 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.679 ideas about what what the human species is, what what 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.040 our bodies should look like. Um. There's a two thousand 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.440 three paper that was published in the Journal of Youth 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:45.720 and Adolescence titled the Effect of thin ideal television commercials 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:50.600 on Body dissatisfaction and schema activation during early adolescence. So, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.879 in this study, they presented two groups of girls with 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.520 different sets of ads. One set had undernourished women in 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.840 it and the other set did not. They exposed both 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.000 groups of girls to these ads and the results the 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.359 girls who saw the ads with the emaciated models experienced 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:12.160 immediate episodes of insecurity and distress about their weight. What's more, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:17.480 two years later, the same girls still reported greater dissatisfaction 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.000 with their bodies as compared to the other group of 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.240 girls who didn't have to witness the emaciated models in 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.760 the commercials. So the idea here is the continued exposure 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.600 to unrealistic body types in the in the media affected 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.440 the girls perceptions about what a normal, healthy, human female 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.639 body looks like. Again, the media is cultivating our understanding 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.680 of reality, and in this case, it's cultivating our ideas 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.520 about what your body should look like. That's fascinating to me. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.240 So over a number of years, this database gets built 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.160 up in your mind about what is normal, when in fact, 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.240 if you look at the normal statistics for proportions and women, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.920 it's nothing like what is represented in media. Yeah, so 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.359 it's it's it's not not only the outer world that 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.240 is that is skewed, but it's also the inner world. 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.600 It's both looking out and looking inward. Uh, you end 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.639 up with unrealistic expectations about what's gonna happen. All Right, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:13.640 we're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.040 we are going to talk more about the lovers that 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:28.320 we're pulling here with this meanworld syndrome. Alright, we're back. Um. 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:30.040 You know, in all of this, I kept thinking about 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.240 the television series Sons of Anarchy, which I think I 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.280 mentioned previously. Just in the space of a month sort 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.840 of been want bench watched the entire run of the 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.520 show like seven series seasons of it, and the whole time, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.960 I was just really struck by how violent the show is. 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.199 And I'm I'm kind of I'm used to violent shows, 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.520 but I think the based on some some online staff, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.119 I was looking at the members of the biker gang 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.840 in this series kill a hundred and fifty three people 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.920 in the main care Jack's teller, who you're supposed to 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.919 be the most sympathetic towards throughout the show, kills forty 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:07.560 six people here in the course of the show, like 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.119 every episode has some sort of horrible, cold blooded murder 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.600 in it and uh, and so I just kept thinking, like, 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.720 what is this? What is this doing to me? You 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:19.639 know what? How is this affecting my awareness? And and 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.440 am I more afraid of Outlaw Motorcycle Club now than 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.199 I was in the past? I don't know. You know, 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.760 That's how I felt with Breaking Bad. Um. I love 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.040 that series, but it was really hard to watch and 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.639 it gave me the sense that the world is a rotten, 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:38.040 stinking thing. And that's why I like to watch you 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:42.199 Gaba Gabba. It's a lot more positive and uh, and 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.760 it's easier to binge watch the entire the entire run 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.119 of the show and it's got great music too, exactly. Um. 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.040 In terms of binge watching, uh, this is an interesting 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.840 area when especially talking about cultivation theory and mean world syndrome, 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.280 because I mean, binge watching has been around for a while, 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:03.360 but though not in name, uh, for a while, it's 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.080 been possible to get the entire run of a series 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.080 and just throw yourself into it. For a while, it's 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.240 been possible to go to the video Stongeres were in 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:12.119 a bunch of stuff and watch it before they can 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.080 lose yourself in in in a book, in a comic book, 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.440 what have you. But in recent years we've seen been 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:24.320 binge watching pushed as an acceptable and even uh preferable 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.879 model of media consumption. Netflix puts out you know, all 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.679 of the new season of the House of Cards and 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:33.720 you and you can just watch all of it, just 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:36.680