This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.
How hard is it to cover your face?
For me it’s easy, because I have a lot of masks.
Which means I also know how inconvenient they can be.
They make your ears hurt No one can see you smile
Not to mention the humidity
But we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and that’s also been pretty inconvenient.
And tragic.
And this piece of cloth is one of the best tools we have to be able to socialize, go
shopping and get back to normal safely.
We know that masks help slow the transmission of COVID-19, without affecting your oxygen supply.
Oxygen molecules are small enough to pass through the masks and surgeons wear them
for hours at a time.
Wearing a mask helps you from getting sick and it also protects others if you have the
virus but you’re not showing any symptoms.
Wearing a mask protects you, but it also protects your community.
And there are lots of fun designs for everybody!
Masks do help and they look cool too.
Please join me in wearing one so we can see our friends, travel, and get back to enjoying life again…
safely.
Slow the cases, cover your faces!
Recently, you may have seen some ads, or gifs, or images similar to that masterpiece
Except public health messages that actually share statistics and data aren’t as effective
in getting people to change their behaviour.
Now I know that a lot of you like statistics, you like data, which is why you watch this channel
So here are a few stats for you:
40% of people who watch this video will be in the United States
In the past 14 days in the US, there’s been an 80% rise in new COVID-19 cases
So it’s likely that you’re more interested in science and technology than other people you know
So because of that I need a favor.
I need you to talk to others about how they should be using a mask.
And this isn’t just limited to the US, other countries and areas have rising COVID-19 cases too.
In New Zealand, which is almost COVID free, their Prime Minister recently said this,
“As a nation we are extremely fortunate to be supported by our science experts and
science communicators”
I have never heard a world leader use the term “Science Communicators”
But she's right!
Science communicators are super important, and people get their information from all
different places, including friends and family.
And you could be that person.
So I need you to be a science communicator.
You have been watching YouTube videos about science, and maths, and whatever else
for a little while now
So you could argue you've been training for this moment.
Here are six tips with a sprinkle of scientific research on how you can effectively share this message.
It seems logical to think that people are self-interested, that we all just want to
protect our own health
But a recent study found that people were more likely to wear masks when the messages focused
on “your community” compared to “your family” or “your country.”
We tend to underestimate our risk of getting a disease and perhaps thinking about
your country is too large of a scale so thinking about using masks
to reduce the impact on your community has the most impact.
Throwing facts at people makes them easy to ignore
and shaming people often makes them more polarized.
Just giving people information and giving them knowledge
isn't a good motivator for them to change their behavior,
as we can see by health messages on products that people just continue to buy.
And people act less rationally when they consider health choices – like choosing or following a healthy
diet – compared to other choices – like thinking about the best transport option
to get to work.
Another mistake is framing behaviour change as common sense.
Like saying, “wear a mask, it reduces cases, it’s just common sense!”
Because if it was common sense, most people would already be doing it
and behavior change is actually super complicated
so it doesn't help to make it sound simple and effortless.
We often don’t change our behavior because of mental barriers we have
that can then affect our confidence that we can change our behavior,
which is actually a really, really big factor.
So if I decide that I don’t want to exercise because exercise is uncomfortable.
Then I'm done, I've made up my mind.
But to change and build up the confidence that we need, or other people need to do so
it helps to address those barriers,
to figure out what they are, and what we can do about them.
And in the case of masks, addressing that they’re not perfect
Or addressing whatever someone's particular concern is about them
may help.
If we don’t acknowledge people’s concerns, like the discomfort,
then people will hold onto that.
So get to the bottom of it.
Ask why are they uncomfortable?
What are you experiencing?
Does it make your ears hurt?
Can you we get you a mask that doesn't make your ears hurt?
Are you not going to help your community because your ears hurt?
That one was probably a little judgemental.
If you're honest and real with people and address their concerns
it can help give them be more confidence that they can change.
There are a lot of unique challenges with this pandemic and the environment we're in at the moment
But there are some similarities we can see with efforts to slow the spread of other viruses in the past
– like using condoms to slow the spread of HIV in the 80s and 90s.
In the 1980s, messages that shamed people for engaging in unsafe sex or played into their fears –
like this poster of a gravestone – weren’t that effective.
Trying to motivate people by talking about risk and disease doesn’t work that well.
Campaigns that were more effective talked about sexual pleasure and safe sex side by
side, so it didn't seem like they were mutually exclusive
and they went hand in hand.
Think about comparing wearing masks to other behaviors that you already do
automatically to protect yourself and other people.
Like food safety
and refrigerating meat
or wearing a seatbelt.
or wearing sunscreen.
And I'm sure that over the course of your life that you've seen commercials encouraging people to do these things.
Now if you think about wearing a seatbelt, for a lot of us it’s an automatic action when you get in a car
to stop your car from nudging you to do it
but also because of the ads that we absorbed when we were kids.
Click clack, front and back!
How can you forget about click, clack, front 'n' back?!
But you don’t wear a seatbelt because you're a bad driver, necessarily.
You wear a seatbelt to protect yourself from other drivers who are more unpredictable
that could harm you.
Kind of the same way as you wear a mask to protect yourself from other people
who could be carrying the virus.
You wear sunscreen to protect yourself from a danger you can’t visibly see.
And this stops you from experiencing some discomfort in the short term, but also from experiencing
any complications down the road.
similar to a virus.
Of course using seatbelts and sunscreen took people some time to get used to, but they
work and now they’re pretty widely accepted.
But only in 1983, this is nuts, 15% of Americans said that they wore a seat belt.
Some people opposed mandatory seat belt use then, but now, we barely think about it.
Actually in a popular clip of a guy who was arguing against mandatory masks use,
you can actually see he's wearing a seatbelt.
That one was a little judgmental, but I meant it.
Being nice helps if you are trying to persuade other people:
it makes you more friendly and approachable
So, don’t be a dick.
And on top of that, be persistent, within reason.
The more times people hear a message, the more it’s normalized and the more
they're willing to accept it.
Slow the cases, cover your faces
When you take all of this into account, you can see how this ad
Lakeland has 114,000 reasons to mask up, but the only one you'll need is probably right next to you.
Might be more effective than this ad
in curbing the spread of the virus.
Thinking back to those other examples, at this point in 2020,
if we are asking people to stay home, it's not going to work.
It's like asking people to abstain from sex or to stay out of the sun.
It’s more effective if we humanize messages about reducing risks.
If we focus on pleasurable, enjoyable social interactions, the things that most people want
and we add masks and
we add distancing,
and we add washing hands and avoiding crowded outdoor spaces
it will be much more effective.
Wearing a mask is actually super patriotic because it protects your fellow… patriots.
and it is very helpful for your community.
Now, you have some tips and it's over to you. You're a science communicator.
Please share this message.
And this year, has really been the year of graphs.
So if, like me, you want to brush up on your statistics,
Brilliant is the place to do it.
Brillant is the maths and science enrichment learning platform that I’ve also been using
to do daily challenges and short courses too.
I like Brilliant because they make things easy for all different levels:
so if you're a bit rusty, like me, and you need help
it's just a click away or you can level up from a daily challenge to a short course.
If you want to master science problems every day, go to brilliant.org/braincraft and sign up
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