unSpun_ Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation - Brooks Jackson [39]
It’s easy to see why so many had the wrong idea, not because of any intentional deception but because breast cancer gets enormous attention in the news media and that’s where most people get their information. When a CBS/New York Times poll asked people where they learned most about health-related issues, only one in ten said from a doctor; six in ten said they learned most from television, newspapers, or magazines. However, what reporters and editors find newsworthy often is a poor measure of what people really need to know. We get spun by mistaking how often we hear about something for how often it really occurs. For example, as we’ve already mentioned, the more crime stories people see on TV, the more crime-ridden they believe their communities to be, even when crime is declining. Psychologists call this effect the availability heuristic, a mental bias that gives more weight to vividness and emotional impact than to actual probability.
Ironically, breast cancer gets so much attention partly because so many women survive it and become advocates, producing and participating in publicity-grabbing events such as the annual Race for the Cure. That’s not a bad thing, as we’ve noted. But the deadlier risks deserve even more publicity and attention.
A poll taken in March 2005 showed 55 percent of women correctly identified heart disease as their leading killer. The percentage of respondents who get this question right had doubled since 1997. But that change required a massive campaign by the federal government as well as the American Heart Association and other groups. First Lady Laura Bush made women’s heart disease a personal project, and the government’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute scored big in 2003 with its “Red Dress Project,” hooking up with the glitzy Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and nineteen designers. Yet 25 percent of women still think breast cancer is a bigger threat than heart disease. No quack or con man told them that—it is simple misinformation. But that misinformation can kill them—and getting the facts straight can save their lives.
Dangerous Ignorance
Teenagers put their health at risk by getting the facts wrong about sex. In 2005 researchers from the University of California–San Francisco reported in the medical journal Pediatrics on a survey of 580 ninth-graders, whose average age was just under fifteen. Of that group, 14 percent stated there was “absolutely zero chance” of contracting chlamydia through oral sex, and 13 percent said it was impossible to contract HIV through oral sex. In fact, studies have shown herpes, hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and even HIV can be transmitted through oral sex, the study’s authors said. Here, ignorance can lead to a nasty infection or even a life-threatening disease.
Figures from the same study illustrate another type of dangerous sexual ignorance: teens thought others were having sex far more than was actually the case. Only 13.5 percent of the ninth-graders said they had experienced vaginal sex, for example, but the group estimated that 41 percent of others their age had done so—three times the actual number. So it’s probably no coincidence that 26 percent said they intended to have vaginal sex soon, within the next six months—double the percentage that had already experienced it. Peer pressure and peer acceptance are important to adolescents, so thinking that three times as many of their peers are having sex as is really the case probably leads some to try it who might not if they knew the truth.
A similar ignorance prevails among college students. A 2003 study at Virginia’s James Madison University surveyed attitudes about casual sexual behavior while “hooking up”—on a first date with no future commitment. Students were asked how comfortable they felt about engaging in a variety of acts during a hookup, from petting above the waist to sexual intercourse. “Our study suggests that men believe women are more comfortable