Earlier today, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell on the TED Radio Hour podcast. He was talking about choice architecture. In short, how the way we frame the available choices influences decisions (think: opt-in or opt-out, for organ donors for example). James Clear has made me think about this a lot, under the title of “environment design”.
A podcast or two later I’m listening to Fresh Air, about Bannon and Sessions vision for remaking America. Terry Gross and her guest are talking about Breitbart and the kind of coverage it puts forward, namely crimes committed by immigrants.
Do you see the link?
The media landscape we float in, the ideas we’re exposed to, the articles we read — they are the environment in which we make our decisions about what to believe. They are the choice architecture of our beliefs. They follow the path of least resistance. That is why things repeated often enough become truth. Choice architecture.
Note: don’t see a title? Normal, this is my first aside.