Comprehension
Why are we humans so susceptible to the doom and gloom of the news? Two reasons. The first is what psychologists call negativity bias: we’re more attuned to the bad than the good. Back in our hunting and gathering days, we were better off being frightened of a spider or a snake a hundred times too often than one time too few. Too much fear wouldn’t kill you; too little surely would.
Second, we’re also burdened with an availability bias. If we can easily recall examples of a given thing, we assume that thing is relatively common. The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings — which tend to lodge in the memory — completely skews our view of the world.
In this digital age, the news we’re being fed is only getting more extreme. In the old days, journalists didn’t know much about their individual readers. They wrote for the masses. But the people behind Facebook, Twitter and Google know you well. They know what shocks and horrifies you, they know what makes you click. They know how to grab your attention and hold it so they can serve you the most lucrative helping of personalised ads. This modern media frenzy is nothing less than an assault on the mundane. Because, let’s be honest, the lives of most people are pretty predictable. Nice, but boring. So while we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives, ‘boring’ won’t make you sit up and take notice. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads. And so Silicon Valley keeps dishing us up ever more sensational clickbait, knowing full well, as a Swiss novelist once quipped, that “News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.”
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2021.]
Second, we’re also burdened with an availability bias. If we can easily recall examples of a given thing, we assume that thing is relatively common. The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings — which tend to lodge in the memory — completely skews our view of the world.
In this digital age, the news we’re being fed is only getting more extreme. In the old days, journalists didn’t know much about their individual readers. They wrote for the masses. But the people behind Facebook, Twitter and Google know you well. They know what shocks and horrifies you, they know what makes you click. They know how to grab your attention and hold it so they can serve you the most lucrative helping of personalised ads. This modern media frenzy is nothing less than an assault on the mundane. Because, let’s be honest, the lives of most people are pretty predictable. Nice, but boring. So while we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives, ‘boring’ won’t make you sit up and take notice. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads. And so Silicon Valley keeps dishing us up ever more sensational clickbait, knowing full well, as a Swiss novelist once quipped, that “News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.”
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2021.]
Question: 1
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author’s arguments?
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author’s arguments?
Updated On: Aug 2, 2024
- Behavioural traits that helped us in the days when we were hunter-gatherers continue to be present in modern-day humans.
- Behavioural traits that helped us in the days when we were hunter-gatherers are no longer found in modern-day humans.
- The negativity bias makes us more likely to be affected by depressing or sad news.
- We have certain behavioural characteristics that affect how we perceive and are affected by sad news.
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The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (B): Behavioural traits that helped us in the days when we were hunter-gatherers are no longer found in modern-day humans.
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Question: 2
Which of the following is the author most likely to agree with?
Which of the following is the author most likely to agree with?
Updated On: Aug 7, 2024
- Contemporary media continuously exposes us to exciting news and information, which may be just like the things we usually experience in our lives.
- Contemporary media continuously exposes us to exciting news and information, which may be very unlike the kinds of things we usually encounter in our lives.
- Contemporary media continuously exposes us to boring news and information, which may be very unlike the kinds of things we usually encounter in our lives.
- Contemporary media continuously exposes us to boring news and information, which may be just like the things we usually experience in our lives.
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The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (B): Contemporary media continuously exposes us to exciting news and information, which may be very unlike the kinds of things we usually encounter in our lives..
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Question: 3
Based only on the author’s statement that “we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives”, and the author’s argument about the nature of news that modern media exposes us to, which of the following would the author be most likely to agree with?
Based only on the author’s statement that “we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives”, and the author’s argument about the nature of news that modern media exposes us to, which of the following would the author be most likely to agree with?
Updated On: Aug 21, 2024
- Constantly being exposed to negative news gives us a warped perspective of the world.
- In our hunting and gathering days, it was better for us to be unnecessarily scared rather than being scared too little.
- The news modern media exposes us to is just like our day-to-day experiences.
- The news modern media exposes us to is very different from our day-to-day experiences.
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The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (D): The news modern media exposes us to is very different from our day-to-day experiences.
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Question: 4
The author’s statements about negativity bias, if true, provide most support for which of the following conclusions?
The author’s statements about negativity bias, if true, provide most support for which of the following conclusions?
Updated On: Jul 18, 2024
- We are more likely to notice a story about a billionaire donating their money to charity than a story about an airplane crash.
- We are more likely to be attracted to a news article about a rise in life expectancy in our country than a news article about a murder in our city.
- We are more likely to notice a story about increasing pollution levels than a story about improving educational levels in schools.
- We are more likely to form our opinion of the world based on the information available to us rather than information we do not have access to.
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The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (C): We are more likely to notice a story about increasing pollution levels than a story about improving educational levels in schools.
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Question: 5
Which of the following would be the most effective way of countering the effects of what the author describes as our ‘availability bias’?
Which of the following would be the most effective way of countering the effects of what the author describes as our ‘availability bias’?
Updated On: Jul 18, 2024
- Ensuring that we do not seek out news sources and stories that we may not otherwise have been exposed to.
- Following only one news source and limiting our perspective of the world to that one source.
- Avoiding all positive news stories, and instead only reading news stories about disasters and tragedies.
- Ensuring that we seek out news sources and stories that we may not otherwise have been exposed to.
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The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (D): Ensuring that we seek out news sources and stories that we may not otherwise have been exposed to.
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Question: 6
The author says that “The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings — which tend to lodge in the memory — completely skews our view of the world.” The conclusion the author draws in this argument follows logically if which of the following is assumed?
The author says that “The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings — which tend to lodge in the memory — completely skews our view of the world.” The conclusion the author draws in this argument follows logically if which of the following is assumed?
Updated On: Aug 21, 2024
- Our ideas about the world are shaped by the information we are exposed to.
- Modern media is concerned only with making massive profits
- Modern journalists generate news stories much faster than in the old days.
- Humans once lived as hunter-gatherers.
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The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The correct option is (A): Our ideas about the world are shaped by the information we are exposed to.
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