--- topic: [[Thinking]] Lon Setnik created: 2022-12-22 *I just learned about this, suddenly it's everywhere.* This reminds me of being in the Zeitgeist, how certain trends seem to be self-fulfilling. It's kind of like [[Thinking in Systems]] and thinking of reinforcement loops, This is a form of [[cognitive biases]] that causes certain things to appear to be more common after you see them. **frequency illusion**, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone to believe that it has an increased frequency of occurrence. It occurs when increased awareness of something creates the illusion that it is appearing more often. Put plainly, the frequency illusion occurs when "a concept or thing you just found out about suddenly seems to pop up everywhere." This matters because the frequency illusion is a system loop causing increased awareness of something which in turn causes increased availability of your observation for it because it becomes actually more frequent as it is part of the culture. Think tattoos. ##### What would the opposite argument be? What are the negative loops on trends and fads? tags: #note/idea | #on/bias | #on/thinking ##### Sources: > [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency%20illusion)