During Halloween, a razor blade is found in candy, and a parent shares the event with their friends. The friends then share the story with more friends until it becomes a local news story. A national news network reports on the story causing widespread panic. This causes homemade treats to be banned from Halloween.
The cascades happen when something minor becomes overshared until the knowledge is popular and shared between everyone. Then because the information is shared between everyone, it is always an available and influential data point. People then overweight the severity and create unnecessary reactions.
This doesn’t even need to involve external sources, this can all happen in just the subjects head,
they can be for bad or benign things….
think about the internet “bubble” from 1998-2001, it wasn’t as important at the time as people thought.
think about the y2k “bug” very benign
Think killer clowns circa 2013
think all of the weed scares
It is only because it is popular that people adopt the belief.
The issue becomes important because it is on everyone’s mind.