Bob Haase’s Another Can Of Worms

Perception and Reality

You have probably heard the quote “Perception is Reality” and in some people’s minds it really is.  Unfortunately when people hear things too often they begin to believe it and this can have devastating effects.  When people start believing the things they hear without checking out the facts they often pass it on to someone else, and that person passes on to another person, and the next thing you know you have what’s called a rumor.  The problem is not the process of passing it on… the problem is passing it on without checking the truthfulness of the statements.

Many of us receive E-mails about various things and the sender asks us to pass it on.  The more controversial the information or subject is, the more likely it is that the information they want you to pass on is not true.  There are a number of fact checking services on the internet and with most of these you can check the validity of the information in just a few minutes.  Some of the best fact checking sites are as follows:

            Snopes                      snopes.com  

            FactCheck                 factcheck.org  

            PolitiFact                   politifact.org  

            Truth or Fiction          truthorfiction.com  

I personally do not pass on information whether it is true or not.  I think we all get enough E-mails without adding more.  I do however check the truthfulness of the information on one of the fact checking services, usually Snopes, and reply back the sender if it is not true.  I also ask them to check things out before they send them to me next time.  Most of the time the sender is surprised to find out that it is not true.  One good thing about replying back to the sender about the information not being truthful and telling them where they can go to check it out has reduced the number of this kind of E-mails I now receive.

One last thing to consider is that some of the E-mails that get passed on say it has been checked out by Snopes, but this is not true.  They just put that on there to make you believe they checked it out. Perception can become reality in the minds of those that fail to check out the truth.  Once we find the truth it is no longer perception… it is reality.   Do your part by checking things out and changing perception to reality by searching out the truth.

Bob Haase is the host of “Outdoors Thursday” heard Thursday mornings at 9:10 a.m. on News-Talk 1450 KFIZ.