Information Cascades and Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners have become more popular over the past couple of years, with new brands coming to light and advertising their zero-calorie products. However, I often hear people talk about how natural sugar is better than Splenda, Stevia, etc., because “there must be dangerous chemicals” in these manmade sweeteners, which is further validated by the notion that “zero calorie is too good to be true.” Personally, I always thought that statement made sense, especially since I mostly see healthy lifestyle-oriented social media figures sweeten their food with natural compounds like honey and agave, which led me to stay away from calorie-free sweeteners as well. However, I recently saw a YouTube video that discussed the health-related consequences of using artificial sweeteners, and it changed my mind. Stephanie, the YouTuber, debunked a lot of claims that are often circulated about artificial sweeteners by citing methodical research that has been done to investigate these zero calorie options, and it encouraged me to read some scientific studies on my own. She talks about the chemicals in popular artificial sweeteners along with their metabolization pathways (how our body processes them). These chemicals break down just like other healthy and natural foods do, and she points out how high their acceptable daily intake is (before they start to harm our system). Stephanie addresses other reasons why artificial sweeteners can lead to weight gain, such as people overeating because they think they can eat more since they cut down calories by using zero calorie sweeteners, which is rather a problem of improper thinking and self-control. She emphasizes that artificial sweeteners are harmless when used in moderation, which can be achieved if you treat it like a calorie-containing sweetener, and that it does serve its purpose to cut down calories.
Hearing a different point of view with credible evidence to back the claims prompted me to finally want to do my own research, because I had been blinded by an information cascade that emphasized the negative health effects of using artificial sweeteners. Seeing my family, friends, health gurus online steer clear of artificial sweeteners, in addition to reading the occasional article against their use, encouraged me to stay away from them as well, because I trusted their unanimous judgement over mine alone. I assumed they knew something I did not. Also, since people around me do not use them, it meant that I had little access to artificial sweeteners and avoiding them was a direct benefit effect, because it would not inconvenience my friends and family to accommodate me using them. As we have seen in class, information cascades can be very influential, but they can also easily be broken if someone who has been previously ignoring their own information acquires credible information that contradicts those popular claims. Especially since I had never looked deeply into the matter on my own, seeing one YouTube video that highlighted the flaws of anti-artificial sweeteners arguments with substantiated evidence immediately changed my mind about them and led me seek out what misleading information I have been accepting without properly processing.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKciZz3hfVc