Why Conspiracy Theories Persist

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Dr. Alberto Acerbi is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento. He is a cognitive/evolutionary anthropologist with a particular interest in computational science. He is the author of “Tecnopanico. Media digitali, tra ragionevoli cautele e paure ingiustificate” (“Technopanic: Digital Media, Between Reasonable Caution and Unjustified Fears”).

In this episode, we focus on Tecnopanico. We first talk about moral panics surrounding new technology. We discuss misinformation, and whether people easily fall for it. We talk about conspiracy theories, whether people really are in online echo chambers, whether algorithms know us better than ourselves, and whether people can fall into “rabbit holes” on social media. We discuss the supposed link between social media use and mental health outcomes, the problem with monocausal explanations, and whether there is such a thing as “social media addiction”. Finally, we discuss whether bans on smartphones and social media work, and the negative effects of alarmist narratives.

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