The Perils of Perception - Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything - BobbyDuffy

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ISBN: 978-1786 494566
Verdict: 👍👍 

A nice short read, with some great facts, that make one think about the general perceptions we have a bias for  about 'stuff' across the globe.

I think this is a good follow on read from FACTFULNESS by Hans Rosling  (See previous review) - it builds upon the same outcomes i.e. the world is not as bad as we all think it is .


The reference to recent events (Brexit/Trump etc) adds great value and below are my favourite bits 
    • over 90 percent of the data on the internet was created in the last 2 years;44 billion gigabytes of data were created on the internet every day in 2016 (p10).
My favourite quote in the book was on p43 ;
    • A story is most important to us in how it ends, and thus the ending effects how we remember it and its lessons for future decisions. (p43) 
    • A lot of our fear is driven not by the unknown, but by an apparent misunderstanding of the facts (p96)  
    • we've known for a long time that we'll accept things that are utterly false if we have sufficient motivation (p172)
    • we also shouldn't kid ourselves:we are travelling towards a world where disinformation has more opportunity to be created and travel faster - (p237)
Its one of those books that you pick up and read and walk away thinking - why don't people believe the data when presented to them .. its because of the context and way information is presented and the surrounding biases - again a nice read.
Location: London, UK

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