5 minutes
fake facts
Abdullah Al Qamzi
Abdulla.AlQamzi@emaratalyoum.com
July 18 2021
I received a post on “WhatsApp” saying: Does sport raise the average lifespan.. Useful information: The inventor of the treadmill died at the age of 54, the inventor of gymnastics at the age of 57, and the world champion in bodybuilding died at the age of 41 Maradona died at the age of 60, and fitness revolution inventor James Fuller Fix died at the age of 52.
On the other hand, the inventor of Nutella and cigarettes lived a long life.
The participation ends with sarcastic words and advice to eat and drink what you want and not to exercise, and that life is in the hands of God.
It is okay to laugh, but the above information is all incorrect or incomplete, and herein lies the danger.
This post was circulated 14,000 times on the "Social Media" platforms, according to the Information Audit and Rumor Refutation Department of "Reuters".
The correction is that William Strobe, the inventor of the treadmill, died at the age of 96.
Those who developed the treadmill in the past decades died after the age of 80.
The inventor of gymnastics, Frederick Ludwig, died in the 19th century at the age of 74, Maradona was a drug addict and led an unhealthy lifestyle, and James Fuller Fix had a genetic heart disease inherited from his father.
Social media platforms rely on repeated posts, and the more repetition people believe, and here false news and misleading and fake information spread.
Not all people scrutinize the information they receive, and when they see a post being repeated, they tend to believe it because it has been repeated.
Exactly like hearing rumors repeated by several people and they turn into facts, and when the truth emerges, no one pays attention to it, especially when it is not repeated in the same way as rumors are re-circulated.
Spreading misinformation, even if it is in the context of a joke, can destroy people's lives and destabilize societies.
People tend to believe information biased towards their values and life beliefs, such as who takes vitamin C to prevent colds, although science said that there is no evidence for this, but whoever believes that is cured because he believes that he will recover, and so is the psychological factor.
If there is a huge fire in your area and you get a 5-second video of a huge fire in Thailand, you will post it thinking that it is a fire in your area.
And so the rumors spread.
Psychiatrist Daniel Kahneman says that the mind has two systems: the first is automatic and fast and works without the person's awareness, and the second is responsible for processing information, and thus drains mental energy, and here most people tend to ignore the second system and work with the first, and this is the reason for many mistakes in life.
Attitude
In the early '90s I had a math teacher tell us to eat a lot of fish because it increases intelligence.
At that time fish was the master of our tables, and the culture of eating in restaurants was not widespread and there were no applications to bring you food home.
We ate a lot of fish and none of us scored high, with the exception of one student who we described as stupid and lazy just because he was sitting at the end of the class, and he was bragging about not eating fish stubbornly in the teacher!
Abdulla.AlQamzi@emaratalyoum.com
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Abdulla.AlQamzi@emaratalyoum.com