Access to Media and Other Tech, Not Actual Events, Have Increased

Hopefully this is an appropriate forum, I considered media...

I see a lot of threads about the increasing disasters like tornadoes and tsunamis.
A lot of people see an increase in UFO sightings in the '50's.
A lot of people noticed an increase in bigfoot sightings in the '70's.

It's important to remember, two things happened in the '50's - people now had portable cameras, and the media reports made more people feel comfortable about reporting their own experiences.

Two things happened in the '70's - more people had VHS video cameras to bring with them on camping trips, and the media made more people feel comfortable about reporting their own experiences.

It seems people aren't paying attention to the whole picture when talking about statistical increases of occurrences.

It's like every new movie that comes out and they say it broke the record in dollars on opening day. Well, ticket prices increase all the time, and there simply weren't as many theaters at one time as there are now - not to mention population increases since movies were invented to now. It's a nonsensical statistic that doesn't mean anything, but people must believe it, because they keep saying it every week.

I'm pretty sure that tornadoes hitting cities and causing a lot of damage is up. Maybe they just wanted to see what it was like in the city.

The number of school shootings is up also, that is not a natural thing though.

Hurricanes and quakes happen all the time, these occurrences lately could be a normal cycle. The fact that we build in risky places increased.

I read somewhere that there were more fireballs for a while, but they settled down now. They verify things after the fact.

You are correct. In Psychology it is called the "mean world" theory.

The more contact we have with others around the world, the faster the contact is, the more we hear of events, be it positive or negative.

This invokes in people the feeling that the world is a crueler and meaner place than ever before in the psychological theory.


The same would hold true for hearing about weather events, earth events, giving us the impression that the worlds weather/events are worse and worse than ever before.

In reality the world was probably far far crueler in the middle ages than it is now and even extraordinarily cruel in cave man days.

a reply to: grandmakdw

i think you & ricky are both right, there has been an increase in weather troubles and the whole schools of fish and flocks of birds dying is new too, i think anyway...

The means and abilities to report things have increased but also many of the events have too. Natural events like storms and earthquakes seem to have increased, along with violence and ill feelings (whole 'nother subject though). Also I think the increased reports have made many more aware of certain things so they're more likely to see/discuss them.

But have you ever tried getting a photo of something when you're either excited or scared? Not to mention many phones will produce blurry images even if you're standing still? It's very difficult trying to get the phone steady enough to not blur it and make it focus correctly.

And as I always say, whenever you want to take a photo of something before it goes away, the iPhone will either click the wrong thing or just not do what you want it to.

"Bigfoot! Quick get a pic!"
"I can't. Thing's stuck on App Store again..."

a reply to: Yeahkeepwatchingme

Natural events like storms and earthquakes seem to have increased

Not so on the earthquake front:

We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.

A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. (Source)

Better technology, better reporting, not more earthquakes.

Storms are another matter, but there's all that "climate change" baggage that goes with that discussion, lol.

a reply to: KAOStheory

Anyone intelligent enough to look at information with a non-biased eye understands that this is true. The problem is that you are going to have a tough time convincing the conspiracy people that this is true since they all operate with a confirmation bias where every little piece of evidence is sculpted to match their pet theory.

a reply to: adjensen

That could be it! With detection and monitoring equipment becoming better and better as time goes by it makes more sense that the amount of quakes being picked up increases, and maybe not the number of quakes.

One thing though, I'm not certain if Bigfoot sightings have technically increased or if the amount of people willing and able to report them have. Have more just decided to report their experiences due to stories becoming more mainstream? Is the fact that we're encroaching more into areas previously not developed contributing to the increase in reports? I always wondered because it seems like they've been seen just as much if not more years ago but circumstances involving ridicule, location, lack of technology seem to have muffled reports in the old days.

nice replies, guys -
hope some of the doom pornographers begin to understand a bit

More cities.
More suburbs extending farther from cities.
Weather radar with TV men staring and hoping for a reason to breaking regular programming.

BREAKING NEWS!
Radar shows a dust devil at the little league field!