50 “Fun Facts That Nobody Asked For”

“As humans, we are naturally curious creatures. We are always trying to understand our place in the world and how things work,” Alex Wong, the marketing expert, book author and creator of “Hijack Copywriter” told Bored Panda.

Wong believes that facts and stats help to give us a better idea of how everything fits together. “Without facts and stats, all we have are theories, which may or may not be true. That’s one thing I love about science. It’s the pursuit of gaining a deeper understanding and knowledge of the world around us. And with this scientific knowledge, we can solve complex problems and make better decisions.”

It's no secret, however, that much of the information that gets shared online is presented as facts although we can never be sure. When asked how not to fall into the traps of fake and misleading facts, Wong said that “the only way to avoid this trap is to expose yourself to as many different ideas and viewpoints as possible. This means you have to educate yourself about the topic before coming to any definitive conclusions.”

Wong urges people to be open to different points of view and look for weaknesses from your side. “Read as many types of resources as you can and never assume you know everything,” he added.

Another great tip is, when reading a news story or post, to check the source and see where it is coming from. You may want to ask yourself these questions, Wong argues: “Are they credible? Who wrote it? Is there a bias? Are they leaving out specific facts? A news story from BuzzFeed is going to be presented very differently from Fox News.”

According to a study by three MIT researchers, false news travels faster on social media sites, such as on Twitter, than real news. Wong noted this quote from their study:“...false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories are. It also takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people.”

“If this is true, this is frightening!” he added. Although, Wong is not surprised at all. “False news stories are generally crafted in a way to maximize views and clicks. This helps with advertising. In contrast, a real news story may be less exciting and glamorous,” the marketing expert explained.

Moreover, social media constantly bombards us with news snippets that conform to our points of view. “And once we see a news story that confirms our existing beliefs, we want to share with it our group, who go on to spread it to their friends, and so forth,” Wong concluded.