Despite being social media-savvy, most Filipinos are found to be rather ignorant when it comes to knowledge of key issues concerning the nation, a survey revealed.

The Perils of Perception 2017 survey by Ipsos showed that the Philippines is one of the countries which scored high on the Misperceptions Index.

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“South Africa receive the dubious honor of being the most inaccurate in their perceptions on [issues], with Brazil and the Philippines also high up the list,” a summary of the survey stated. South Africa and Brazil placed first and second, respectively. The Philippines ranked third.

Meanwhile, Scandinavian countries like Sweden ranked in the survey as the most accurate in its perception of issues, followed by Norway, with Denmark in third.

Among the topics referred to were murder and suicide rates, terrorism death rates, teenage pregnancy and health issues.

Ironically, it would appear that based on the survey, those who rated high in misperception were also among the most convinced of their views. Despite being among the least accurate, respondents in India, the Philippines and Peru showed to be among the most confident in their answers to the survey. In contrast Norway, Germany and Sweden which were among the most accurate in the Index, showed to be among the least confident in their answers.

“We are often most incorrect on factors that are widely discussed in the media, such as deaths from terrorism, murder rates, immigration and teenage pregnancy,” said Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute in London. “There are multiple reasons for these errors – from our struggle with maths and proportions, to media and political coverage of issues, to social psychology explanations of our mental shortcuts or biases.”

He further stated that the misperceptions increase “partly because we overestimate what we worry about: the more we see coverage of an issue, the more prevalent we think it is, especially if that coverage is frightening or threatening.”

“Our brains process negative information differently,” Duffy said. “It sticks with us and affects how we see realities. We’re more worried than we should be about how our countries are and how they’re changing.”

The survey was done between Sept. 28 to Oct. 19 of last year, with 29,133 overall participants from 38 countries, ranging from ages 16 to 64 years old. JB

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