Dilbert creator Scott Adams has a great read up on his blog right now called "How to know you're in a mass hysteria bubble."
Everyone seems worked up over nothing these days, but it's nothing new. As Adams points out, there are plenty of examples of mass hysteria from the past.
Here's just a bit of his piece:
"History is full of examples of Mass Hysterias. They happen fairly often. The cool thing about mass hysterias is that you don’t know when you are in one. But sometimes the people who are not experiencing the mass hysteria can recognize when others are experiencing one, if they know what to look for.
I’ll teach you what to look for.
A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it..."
Click here to continue reading Adams' full piece at his blog.