Frequency illusion

Published on in Miscellaneous

That cool thing you just heard about – is it suddenly gaining popularity, or are you just noticing the topic more?

After learning about a new topic, it sometimes seems to quickly surge in popularity. Like "wow, this topic is nowadays being covered everywhere" or "awareness of this topic is clearly increasing, nice."

That's possible. Or, it's also possible that you are just noticing the topic more.

Here's what Wikipedia tells us about frequency illusion:

Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, 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 a high frequency (a form of selection bias). It occurs when increased awareness of something creates the illusion that it is appearing more often. Put plainly, the frequency illusion is when "a concept or thing you just found out about suddenly seems to crop up everywhere."

I had been looking for a term for this phenomenon. Now let's see if I start to notice lots of coverage of the frequency illusion. 😄