Information Cascades and its Role in the “Mandela Effect”
The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which a large group of people remember detailed events or aspects of things that are incorrect or never existed. This causes people to have supposedly shared memories of objects or events in time, and when revisited it is seen that the details are changed or not the exact same. The term originated from Fiona Broome in 2009 when she had mentioned the tragedy of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980’s and many other people corroborated her memory, even going as far to remember there being news coverage on his death; however, this is proven to not be the case as his actual recorded death date is in 2013. One such explanation can be attributed to false memories, and the erroneous recall that happens when one tries to recall certain memories that do not currently hold important standings in their psyche. This recall is not completely individualistic however and can also be influenced by outside sources through other people’s memories or statements. These can affect the way you recall past events in your own mind and provide falsehoods that your mind will find easier to recall or remember which overrides your original view of the event.
The Internet directly factors into feeding this phenomenon as it provides fuel for people to corroborate and spread this false information. With the introduction of the internet, even one person’s false memory or erroneous recall can be spread amongst millions, which can influence a plethora of people to also remember it the same way. As people make decisions that are directly based on the decisions of others through the internet due to information cascades, this provides a snowball effect for this phenomenon as more people’s memories will be falsified in order to believe that something is out of place. The influence information cascades have on the Mandela Effect is major, as many people will begin to do (or in this case think) the same thing about prior events even if the information is false due to so many other people corroborating their story and also believing that they are correct. The malleability of human memory can be taken advantage of through this cascade, as one’s confidence grows with the addition of every person that also believes the falsehoods. This makes it much harder to see that your memories have been influenced or falsified through repetition of the false information cascade and can provide insight into how examples of the “Mandela Effect” are disseminated so broadly amongst both internet users and those in real life.
www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-mandela-effect-4589394