Information Crisis | Stories With Traction Podcast

 

SUMMARY: In this episode, Julia Soplop and Matt Zaun discuss Julia’s book, Information Crisis.

JULIA SOPLOP: Julia is an award-winning author of four books: Information Crisis: How a Better Understanding of Science Can Help Us Face the Greatest Problems of Our Time, Equus Rising: How the Horse Shaped U.S. History, Documenting Your World Through Photography, and Untangling the Self-Publishing Process.

For more info on Julia:
Website
The book
LinkedIn

MATT ZAUN: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

 

Matt Zaun 

Recently, I read a book that blew me away. The book was interesting. It was exciting, fascinating, and somewhat horrifying.

I'm really excited for this upcoming conversation because I have the author of the that book with us. The book is called information crisis, how a better understanding of science can help us face the greatest problems of our time.

The book is written by Julia Saflop. I'm so excited to dive in and pull out elements of this book in this interview.

 

Julia Soplop 

Welcome to the show, Julia. Thank you.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thanks for having me. Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate the work that you put into the world.

So I weighed your book prior to this interview.

 

Julia Soplop 

I've never weighed a book before.

 

Matt Zaun 

Your book is almost one and a half pounds, which for people listening, that's a huge book. And it is just gorged with tons and tons and tons and tons of research.

So I'm sure as you were writing this book, I'm sure there was elements of excitement, but also frustration, especially with some of the stuff you talk about.

Why did you write this book? how did you keep going when it got difficult?

 

Julia Soplop

Well, I am a science science and medical journalists by by training. And over the years, I had in the back of my mind that I thought it'd be interesting to write sort of a practical kind of a slim 1.5 pounds consumer guide to to consuming health and science news and information that just might give people some tips on where to find sources and what kind of language to look for so that they could find information that could help them make you know some difficult decisions.

And then more in more recent years it became more apparent to me that the problems were with misinformation and with science literacy were just much much broader than than I had understood them to be and that there was a sort of element of a lot of information manipulation that was happening that I thought this project needed to grow into something broader that a consumer guide is helpful but there's so much there's so much

such underlying information that I think needs to be understood before you can really get the most out of a practical guy like that.

 

Matt Zaun 

You know what I found really interesting. So when I first picked up the book, I didn't know what to expect and I quickly realized as I was reading, I could barely put it down.

And it just it speaks to the ability you were able to capture your audience because when you mentioned science and medical journal, it doesn't really seem like it'd be a page turn, but it's just full of information that I had to process.

I had to sit with. had to really think about, especially from from a family perspective. I was looking at it through the lens of the world.

We're going to give our kids. So it just it kept me processing and thinking and I really appreciate your ability to do that.

I want to dive into some of the elements of the book, just so we can dissect some of them together.

So you mentioned early on and I I found this fascinating. It's just it's so true. They may feel motivated by keeping people on their sites and apps that align their initiatives closely with those who still outrage, spread misinformation, and appeal to people's existing biases and preferences.

Old gatekeepers failed in many ways, and no doubt that failure helped fuel mistrust and doubt, but the new gatekeepers succeed by fueling mistrust and doubt as long as the clicks keep coming.

So I want you to speak to that from a, guess, a science perspective and also a psychological perspective on what this is doing to our society, the engines that are being set up to continually spread misinformation to keep people engaged on a website.

 

Julia Soplop 

Yeah, so that was a quote from Zane up to Fetchy, who is an incredible sociologist and writer, and I think she really hit the nail on the head there that there were, you know, we've had problems in the past with gatekeepers.

to our only allowing certain types of people to be the purveyors of information. And I think maybe we all were hopeful that platforms like social media would help to sort of democratize information that any old person could get out there and say what needed to be said and share their perspective.

And of course, there are elements of that that are true and have come to pass. But what we're seeing is that these platforms have realized that they can really capitalize on our vulnerabilities and by stoking fear and spreading information that is very, that really gets us emotionally involved and makes us feel angry and outraged.

And they can really make money on this. And so those algorithms that they use to put information in front of us, they do much better.

There's evidence that shows that false hoods travel much faster and further than true statements, and they have really figured that out.

And so when we are seeing, we think we're just looking at a fee, looking at some news, and we're really being fed this information that is meant to keep us on longer and keep us clicking and keep our attention engaged.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's almost like we create different worlds for ourselves, and people are in their own little bubble when it comes to information.

Is there any recommendation that you would have so we can overcome this as a society?

 

Julia Soplop 

What checks and balances do you think need to be in place to overcome this? Well, I think the first thing is, I think there is a power in just being aware of this.

And I think we probably all heard by now the term confirmation bias that we are living in these little bubbles, which I think we always have in some ways.

Like if you live in a specific town, you know, before the internet, there were certain views probably that were held among your neighbors and things like that that you maybe were likely to have.

to hold yourself. So this isn't entirely new, but I think it's become more extreme because we can so carefully curate the environment that we're in, the information environment that we're in.

So I think one just being knowledgeable about that. And then I think also being intentional about I'm not just getting information about the world because it's being said to me, but I'm making, I'm going to make active choices about where I seek out my information.

And if my actual goal is to find out what's really going on, then I need to put some work in to find credible sources of information, more credible sources of information.

It's relative, I suppose, but that the goal of those publications is to try to represent how, you know, things as accurately as possible, but that's actually the mission of the organization versus getting information from either I don't even know where somebody just posted it, and I'm going to believe it, or publication.

organizations where they really have a mission to to get you to see a certain perspective about something. So one thing that we can do is that I point people to is there are some non-partisan organizations that actually analyze the fact reliability of sources of information of new sources and also their level of political bias.

And those are important bias and fact reliability are important. You don't want to just look at one or the other because something can technically be factual, it can be quite misleading in the way that it's framed.

And so I encourage people to, in the book I do talk about a specific resource ed font, I think that's a great job of analyzing across different publications and putting them on a chart so you can see whether they are more accurate and whether they are more sort of center, they're more balanced in their coverage.

And I think it's really important to realize that whether I personally like and That I'm seeing in a publication that doesn't really have anything to do whether with whether it's actually accurate, and so there are ways that we can, if we want to find those sources, we can look to actual analysis and we can we can find them pretty easily, actually.

 

Matt Zaun 

I really appreciate you mentioned that, you know, something I recently did that I felt like I had to set up some type of check for myself was I took certain social media platforms off my mobile device.

And I'm actually scheduling time as might sound weird scheduling time on my calendar to go in to these social social media platforms.

So as a prime example, I love travel. We were talking about travel earlier on prior to this podcast interview love travel and utilize Facebook for different travel pages.

I'm trying to be more intentional setting time on my calendar. I'm going to go on my desktop computer. I'm going to go into Facebook.

book, I'm going to look at these travel pages. So the reason for that is because I felt like I was getting sucked in just mindlessly scrolling on my mobile device.

And back to your point of just being in our own little bubble, not being intentional, almost allowing the algorithm to wash over our brains, just it was a very unhealthy place for me to be.

So just setting up that intentionality, I thought was really, really helpful. So I appreciate you speaking to that even on a larger level regarding making sure that the information we're going after is credible and then can be backed up with many sources.

So I really appreciate you mentioning that. I do want to talk about the spoken word for a moment too, because I deal with a lot of business leaders that are in front of a lot of people.

And one of the things that I do is I do a lot of storage strategy where I'm teaching people how to be more inspirational, how to be more persuasive, how to connect more with their audiences.

And you made a really powerful point in here. I'm going to read it for for the listeners. It's comforting to hear someone speak with certainty, especially when the subject is unfamiliar to us, but accepting information solely on authority leaves us without a solution when authority contradicts each other.

If we accept information on authority alone, we have no way to evaluate which source, if any, correct, leaving us perhaps to accept the explanation of the one who shouts because I said so the loudest.

So I really want to touch on this because every business leader in the world wants to be a better communicator.

want to be vibrant. They want to hold an audience in the palm of their hand. mean, leaders fantasize about whipping groups into a frenzy and getting them to the point of buying into their ideas.

I want to, I want you to talk about the danger of even tweaking stories and framing things, like you had said earlier, framing things that it might be true, but it's definitely

 

Julia Soplop 

being used for manipulation purposes. I want you to speak to that. Yeah, so I think, you know, as a, when leaders are thinking about how to connect and talk to people, I think an important thing to think about is that they, you know, they are in a position of power, they're some kind of authority figure, maybe they're the CEO of a big company and people are looking to them for advice.

And I think it's really important that they're not relying on, it's very natural for people to put more weight in something that someone says because they are an authority figure.

But you never want to be in a place where you are expecting people to believe you that because I said so because I am an authority figure.

So I think it's really important that, that a position, you know, that a leader who's speaking to people and trying to inspire or convince people.

to come along with them. But you're really talking from a place of you're showing why you are a credible expert in that field and that and that when you are you are speaking from a place of you don't don't believe me just because I happen to somebody gave me this position or I'm in this position of power but because I have this evidence to back it up because I have had these experiences I have had these successes.

Here's a bunch of data that I'm going to pull in that's going to back up my story that I'm telling you right now.

I think it's to have sort of a foolproof story that you know a reliable story you can't be forcing your audience just to believe you because you happen to be the one that that is standing there and granted the right to hold the microphone and so I think that's just really something to keep in mind that not to not to to be leaning on that aspect of why you're there and to just and to be always

kind of pulling in pulling in that data and that that's why they should be listening to you. It is not because of that position of authority.

 

Matt Zaun 

Great point. I want you to talk a little bit more to the information processing shortcuts you talked about. You mentioned numerous pitfalls in the book and I really appreciate you mentioning just the danger of misinformation but when it comes to relentless repetition.

So there's elements that you touched on that just it seems so not only frustrating but very, very dangerous.

 

Julia Soplop 

So can you go over some of those? Yeah and I think this ties back a little bit to what we were talking about before about when you were on social media and I have the same feeling that when you're scrolling and you're just feeling like this stuff is just washing over you and in the sense it is I'll go back up and talk about how our brains process information.

You know sometimes we think like oh somebody who thinks differently than I do or is on the other side of the political spectrum, well, you know, they're, they're not understanding something, the way I do.

But the reality is that we all, all of our brains process information through a series of shortcuts. And this is just the reality.

It's not, oh, that person does, and I don't. This is just how our brains intake information. There's too much to take in, and we intake it and simplify it in many ways.

And that's just the reality of life. And when we are, there are ways that we can kind of override these initial impulses that are really about us being able to make snap judgments that goes back to snap judgments that, that impact our survival, like, you know, as we were evolving, our brains are not very different from, from those early brains that we had.

And so we are still simplifying information as it comes in. And one aspect of that is, and, and that leaves us open to, to manipulation in a lot of ways that leaves us vulnerable to people paying on.

Oh, there's. They're just gonna take this simple message and they're not gonna think too deeply about it. And so in terms of the information overload, I think something that is dangerous about that, just endless scrolling and just having this information constantly flowing at us is that one of those one of those biases is that we are more likely to believe something is true if it is familiar to us, which means that if we have just by pure repetition, just by hearing it over and over again, we are more likely to think it's true.

And also if it's easier for us to understand. So the simpler the better or we've heard it before. So now when we hear it again, we already have our head around it.

And I think that's pretty scary to think about that even if you are somebody who is cognizant of these types of things, just having those ideas present does make you more likely to believe them.

I think that that speaks to. who, you know, the necessity of doing things of intentionality like you were saying, you're going to spend less time scrolling and just going to those sources when you want to find the type of information that you're looking for.

Because we do, we are vulnerable to messaging just in these really simple ways that we're not always thinking about.

 

Matt Zaun 

Would you recommend someone do right after this episode's over to maybe revamp how they're getting information? I know you had mentioned about being intentional, seeking out credible sources.

think that's a wonderful tip in many, many ways. But would you recommend someone maybe put a pause on information they're getting and try to assess what's happening, try to figure out what are some actual things that you would recommend for people to revamp the way that they are experiencing and allowing information to come into their orbit?

 

Julia Soplop 

Well, I think you had a great idea of just taking control over what you're seeing all the time. So just taking out.

out that the element of some of that stuff that's just being bombarded, you know, that you're just being bombarded with that feels out of control, but there are some things you can do like step back from social media.

And you can also, you know, go and try to evaluate some quality, you know, what are some quality sources of information, like that chart that I was talking about.

And then I think also, but it's unrealistic to think that you can just totally put blinders on and you can have complete control over what, you know, what you see, right, or what's coming at you.

So I think an important thing to do also is, you know, let's say a friend texts you some weird article about some crazy thing that does the subject interest you, but you're like, this looks like a sketchy website.

I'm not familiar with the source. I don't know that I can believe it, but I'm kind of concerned about what it's about.

I want to know more about that. Then there's nothing wrong with then, you know, so pursue that figure out what that was about, if that was legitimate problem or concern that you need to be looking into.

But you can do that But you can go to a more reputable source of information and maybe even go to a few of those because probably if this is actually a huge life changing story those those larger more established outlets that do a lot of fact checking and have a long track record of fact liability.

They're going to be covering that too. And so I think that's something like it's called reading laterally where it's going to kind of determine like is this a source of information that's accurate and then are there sources that are better.

So I think there's this there's a sort of defensive things that you can do like limiting the things that you are allowing into your life.

But then there's this sort of offensive angle of actually purposely going out and finding a source of information about something that's important to you that is a higher quality source.

So I think it's a combination of like playing defense and then also offense.

 

Matt Zaun 

I really like that. mean there's no sports team that can survive without doing defense. It's an offense. really appreciate you mentioning that.

What is your concern regarding AI technology in the years ahead and how should we be viewing that and preparing ourselves and preparing our communities and our families and our institutions to try to get ready for what might be coming in the years ahead?

 

Julia Soplop 

That's a huge question and it is a huge concern and it's something that as I so it was like one mention like oh my gosh we're in more trouble now you know but I think this really truly the same principles apply where we need to be you know there's going to be just more more craziness that's put out onto the internet but I'm not really concerned that that is going to be like finding its way into you know a top publication that is you know doing tons of fact checking and they are on top of they know

They know how this information is being produced and they know how to find, you know, accurate sources and stuff like that.

So I do think that there's going to be just more and more and more of, you know, deep fake videos.

That's really scary, I think, because that feels so real. Things like that. think we just need to be aware.

We just need to be even more skeptical of things that we come across. And then we need to be even, I mean, I basically just don't, at this point, if it's a source that I don't know, I just am not going to believe it at this point, I'm going to go to those.

So I think, I think it's always the solution to keep going back to those sources that have, you know, relentlessly shown that they are more accurate when we need to find information.

And I think it's, it's just going to be even more just kind of skepticism and blocking out of those sources that, that are sketchy.

I think we'll just have more and more of those, but I think the same principle applies of what you would do now to present.

protect yourself as what you would do when there's just even more of this information out there.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, I appreciate you mentioned that. You know, it's really interesting with all the information that's coming out right now, just tons and tons of information.

I feel like more and more people are leaning on individuals that they've fallen in love with. So whether it's a certain news reporter or whether it's a certain quote unquote influencer on YouTube, they they fall in love with So how do we how do we bring people to the table that have differences of opinions and start the conversation from the other side?

How do we how do we inspire people to look look at both sides of an argument?

 

Julia Soplop 

Is that even possible anymore? Oh gosh, I don't know. I mean, that's a great question because we're I feel like we're living in a time where I think most of us are pretty emotionally charged up.

We may have different, you know, different viewpoints. points that I think a lot of us are feeling pretty amped up in these years.

I think one is again, being deliberate about your own, know, do I really want to be open? Is that my goal?

Is my goal to be open to information? And in, you know, when we talk about scientific information, which is my focus, you know, science relies on an openness to new information.

If we are finding out more about how the world works relies on openness. so I think we need to be very, you know, very honest with ourselves about, okay, is that my goal?

Do I really want to find out what is accurate? And if so, that does, you know, I do have to have this openness.

And also going back to what you were saying about how I do feel like we're living in a time of this like cult of personalities where we're following, you know, we're following these specific influencers.

whether they're cultural or political or whatever, and we're kind of following them as an authority figure and listening to what they're saying, which there's actually a brain shortcut and this called authority bias, where you're actually more likely to give more weight to something that someone says or find it more accurate if they are in a position of power and somebody who is they may be, know, an Instagram influencer, but they have, if they've exerted some power over you, you need to be kind of aware of that.

I think that the name of the game is really looking like we were talking about earlier, beyond that authority to like, where's the evidence?

So can we always be looking for where's the evidence? Where's the evidence behind what you're saying? Point me to that evidence and I'll go check it out.

Instead of, oh, you said this and I like you. And so, and so I'm gonna, I'm gonna team up with you.

So I think, you know, it really comes down to our Or we, I think it is possible, but it comes down a bit to like, personal, are you motivated to actually, to actually think deeper about, about these things and dig into the evidence instead of the authority.

 

Matt Zaun 

Why should a business leader focus more on understanding how science can help them?

 

Julia Soplop 

That's a good question. When, when I write about science in, you know, in this book, I'm not just talking about bench sciences, hard sciences, somebody doing like a physics experiment over here, which is important to learning how the world works, but it doesn't necessarily feel like it's relevant to every aspect of business, but when I'm really talking about social, you know, social sciences as well, and I'm talking about the ways that we figure out how things work in the world, and so in terms of, business leaders, I think the more that you can offer, the more data and evidence that you can offer in terms of,

of what, you know, you're probably selling a product or service and you're trying to get people on board with like this, here's how it works.

And it doesn't work because you said it does, and it doesn't necessarily work because your business was successful because there are a lot of factors, obviously, that go into business success, greater economy and, know, a million things that doesn't necessarily mean that, for example, your product works.

And so just because people bought it, that doesn't necessarily mean that. And so I think the more that we, you know, the more that we can pull in evidence and actually do, you know, obviously, this varies depending on business, but the more that we can do to reassure our clients that our solutions actually work, the more data that we can pull in, then it doesn't, it's not a question of, do they believe you?

It's a question of, am I, you know, here is the evidence and I, let me help you understand the evidence.

And that takes out the sense that you have to believe me because I said so, and can really build confidence, and actually, it shows that your product works, but it builds confidence that you are doing what you're doing and that you're not yourself using these manipulation techniques to try to get us to believe that you're doing something that you're saying.

should take out that requirement of belief in your product, I think, instead of just here's the evidence that it actually works.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I absolutely love that because one of the biggest core is of communication, us connecting with another human being, or who are you, what are you about, and where did you learn it?

And for me, who are you, is not, you know, I'm Bob or I'm Sally, but like, who are you to your core?

Are you a person of power, are you a person of integrity? And it goes to the fabric of who they are as a person, and if we are lying, that's not only going to fray trust, but it really tears into who we are.

as a human being. And I think it's so important that business leaders recognize that yes, if they could be persuasive and they could inspire, that's great.

But if they're doing it from the lens and manipulation, if they're doing it from the lens of just creating stories out of thin air that didn't happen, it can be incredibly destructive, incredibly dangerous.

And they're really adding to a lot of the horrors that you speak about in your book. So I think it's really important that people remain good storytellers, they get better at storytelling for sure, but they back it up with data.

So it's really important share a story, back it up with data, share a story, back it up with data.

And I really appreciate you bringing light to that that is really important, especially in today's society that is starving, for credible sources, that we are self-offable sources for what we're talking about.

So I really appreciate you mentioning that. What would you recommend for my kids? So I want to talk about my kids for a moment.

So you also have kids So I have a 10 year old, a nine year old and a six year old, they're begging me to get on more and more screens, more and more social media, even my six year old.

So can you speak to maybe some of the research that you came across in all of your studies and in all of your experience regarding children and getting sucked into the information crisis?

 

Julia Soplop 

Yeah, I think this has been topic of conversation certainly in my family a lot. My kids are 13, 12 and 8, so very similar phases as yours.

I think this is something that since our kids were born, there have been iPads and more devices, and then of course there were when we were young and it's something that we've been struggling with.

I think it's realistically, I think it's a big challenge because you know almost all the kids in my like in the middle school at our

school, they have smartphones and access to things. I think it can be very hard to have these like definitive rules, like, oh, where, you know, my kids not gonna do that.

Well, then your kids totally out of the loop socially, and that's a whole nother thing. So I think there's, you know, there's a lot of sensitivities here that there's that it's not super clear.

I think my understanding of where some of the data is on the influence of social media and kids is there's a lot of correlative data that social media is not good.

We're not really far enough along. I think that there's tons of like really firm causative data on some of these things, on the, you know, specific dangers to these specific populations and things like that.

And yet, even as a person who's very data driven, I was just having a conversation with a friend that sometimes, you know, science takes a while to catch up.

to whatever is happening. It takes a long time for things to happen, and then we design studies, and then we collect data, and it takes a long time to understand something once the ball is rolling.

And I think that we have all personally seen the effect of these things on ourselves as adults, how I feel the same way as you, where I feel like kind of addicted to my phone or to these social media feeds or whatever.

And I see that it's fracturing my attention, and I sometimes maybe feel bad that somebody's doing something that I'm not, or doing it better than I am, or something like that.

I don't think it's that high. I think it in this, we are all going through this. And so I think that it's not, we can extrapolate that to our kids and know that it's not a great thing to be addicted to this stuff, right?

So I'm comfortable with even though the research, I think is a little behind and has maybe been a little bit overstated about some of these dangers in terms of where that research is.

I think we can kind of see it with our own eyes because it's so widespread and we and we all are kind of experiencing it at the same time that that I think it, know, my own view on that my own personal view is it's good to, you know, to limit that as long as we can with our kids and try to, you know, push back on that as much as we can, but the reality is like, that's where the world is right now and that's where teenagers are right now in terms.

And, and that's, you know, it's not probably something that we can like ban for personally, you know, personally like, oh my kids never going to do that.

And they're never going to see other people's phones and their, you know, so, yeah, so I think it's a really, it's a really tough thing to navigate and like I wish we didn't have to, I wish we weren't in this position.

But my philosophy is sort of like, you know, let's stay off it as long as we can, but without without being realistic that that it really is something that is a part of their lives.

and is going to be and I would rather try to kind of help them navigate that and and have more control maybe than I do because I you know so that maybe they're they're on from refuting them then we are there has been.

 

Matt Zaun 

You know it almost speaks to offering more grace to our kids I appreciate you you mentioned that I'm thinking as you're speaking I'm thinking about just my own life and what social media and what all these different information bubbles have done to me and I need to step back and I need to kind of walk in my kids choose for a moment and recognize this is the world that they're in I think in your book you give a lot of different information on how we should view the world how we should view information what we can do to do better research with sources I really appreciate that I also really appreciate this conversation today there three different things I'm going to take away from our conversation so the first is again

being intentional, seeking out credible sources. think that that was really important, not only for us as adults, but also for our kids, making sure that they're also seeking out credible sources.

The second is, and I've never heard it in quite these terms before, to not only be on the defense, but also to be on the offense.

I think what I was doing was I was being more on the defense, right, take things off my mobile phone.

I never really thought about being strategic about being on the offense. I really appreciate you mentioning that. And again, it speaks back to what we can do for our kids, being on the offense, making sure that we are their best advocate for the information they're absorbing.

And the third and final thing is a big takeaway for me, is the way you speak about science as it pertains to business leaders.

I think it's really important as the world changes, and as there's so much misinformation out there, what can we do in our sphere of influence?

And you mentioned that science relies on openness to information, and if... focuses on putting out factual data. It's incredibly important that as business leaders get better at communication and connecting with an audience, they cannot miss that.

It needs to be infused with factual data. So Julia, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

If people want to get more information on you and your book, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

Julia Soplop 

Yep, they can go right to my website, JuliaSophop.com, and there's a page for the book with some information about it right there.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. I'll include that in the show notes. recommend people go to JuliaSight, check out the book, read it, you will not be disappointed, and thank you again for your time with us today.

 

Julia Soplop 

Thank you so much.