On the night the story of Dr. Khoa went viral, some people felt lucky to have woken up a little later. The false story information makes them feel relieved because they 'had time to cry'd for a tragic story that is not true.

A few days ago, a story went viral in Asia that a certain Dr. Khoa took off the breathing tubes of his Corona-suffering parents to save a pregnant woman. A heartbreaking story - if it were true. Because all this never happened but has been shared millions of times.

Why do we easily believe sad stories?

The prolonged epidemic period was also the time when fake news took the throne. More and more news is being shared non-frivolously and quickly on social networks. Many people have also been penalized for reporting in the style of &quot;hands faster than brains&quot;. That is, not having time to verify, believing immediately leads to a wrong action of sharing news, even orienting the content according to their beliefs.

A lot of people have made the same mistake, but why do we keep repeating such silly actions?

We get into this rush because most of us are driven by emotions. Empathy and altruism make you feel like such a great story needs to be celebrated immediately, forgetting that you need a counter-argument before believing it.

Be honest with yourself, if you are a pregnant woman like in the case of Doctor Khoa, as soon as you see these pictures, do you feel sympathy or not? Will your tears fall? Do you feel you are being overwhelmed by your emotions?

In the art of storytelling, skilled writers often use emotional material to create empathy from readers with their characters. Not only happy emotions but also sad emotions. You may not know it, but we are often strangely attracted to sad stories even when they make us sad. This phenomenon is still known by philosophers as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920107/">the sadness paradox</a>.

There are many reasons for us to be especially attracted to sad stories that in Doctor Khoa&#39;s story talk about the peak of suffering - a child has to take out his own breathing tube and sacrifice his own parents. give birth to yourself.

Sad stories are fascinating because they make you:

<ul>
	<li style="text-align:justify">Feel empathy</li>
	<li style="text-align:justify">Show altruism</li>
	<li style="text-align:justify">Feel the sad story carries a deep meaning</li>
	<li style="text-align:justify">Feeling a strong emotion (grief)</li>
	<li style="text-align:justify">Feeling like I&#39;m still lucky (when I see someone grieving)</li>
</ul>

So, when we hear a compelling story that evokes empathy, our brains immediately synthesize oxytocin, a hormone that, when released, can make us more compassionate, charitable. more generous, more generous, and more believable. And when the story involves a charity, people may feel emotional enough to donate money or time to a social cause.

For professional authors, composing and carving stories to reach the goal of empathy is not difficult. If the reader has &ldquo;cry&rdquo; with you, acting on your call, then the story has served its purpose.

Empathize, but no need to be alert

We are living in days when we need empathy more than ever. When friends are unemployed, the family has elderly people who died during the epidemic period without having children and grandchildren around. The workers stuck in many places are in a dilemma of not being able to return to their hometown, nor knowing how long they should stay when they don&#39;t know when they will get a job or the people are poor. take care of daily meals.

Not only those who lost their jobs, lost their food. People with Covid-19 and those on the front lines of the fight against the epidemic especially need everyone&#39;s sympathy when they are struggling against the epidemic but rarely call for sympathy because they are too tired and busy.

But before you feel the need to share a message, or launch a call to help the community, it&#39;s okay to slow down a bit. Maybe 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and see if I&#39;ve rebutted the story deeply enough. That way we hope to help the right people in the right way.

Ask yourself: Who is this message shared by? Is this person trustworthy? For what purpose was it created? From what sources can you verify the information? If sharing can help others or not? It&#39;s even a positive message, but are you inadvertently hurting someone by sharing this message?

In short, anyone can be overwhelmed by emotions when taking a particular action. In these days of hot water, so many mixed emotions are created online, we need to slow down and be sober before sharing any news.

Our tip for you: Google has set up a <a href="https://toolbox.google.com/factcheck/explorer">Fact Check in the Toolbox</a> that lets you search for different keywords and checks news for their truth content. This will help you navigate a little better through the vastness of the endless news density. Ahoy!

<ul>
	<li style="text-align:justify">The article references ideas from the article <a href="http://firesteelwa.org/2015/07/wired-for-empathy-how-and-why-stories-cultivate-emotions/">Wired for Empathy: How and Why Stories Cultivate Emotions</a></li>
</ul>

What we can learn before we are sharing 'Fake News'

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