This is what 24/7 news does to the brain. It completely fucks up people’s sense of how risky things are.

As humans we tend to assume that the probability of something happening is proportional to the number of times we can remember hearing of it happening.

Many people think children walking or playing alone are at high risk of getting abducted because they hear about it “all the time” on the news. Yet they don’t think twice about sticking their kids in the car and driving somewhere.

Statistically though you’re orders of magnitude more likely to kill your child in a car accident, than have them abducted by a random stranger while allowing them to play or walk somewhere unattended. Car accidents are common so they rarely make the news, Child Abductions are extremely rare And frequently make the news. The mom in the story could have literally driven the child to the town and put the child at a greater risk in doing so then letting the child walk there alone.

Both the cop in the story, and the Karen that called him, Have a completely distorted sense of how much risk this child was in, And it’s all because the news media makes us think the extremely rare is relatively common.

In recent years, the media has told stories in fear mongering ways in order to drive more ratings, Which is only the amplifying this effect.