Op-Ed: Quarantine Fatigue Is Overtaking Us. We Could Have Done Better.
People are getting bored and longing for human contact. We should have guidelines that recognize this.
I’ve spent the majority of the last decade lecturing and consulting on the motivational factors that drive human behavior through the prism of behavioral design and gamification. Most of this work has been in service of industry, civic engagement, and health.
One of my consistent observations has been the terrible way most “hard” scientists communicate with the public, and how their lack of grounding in behavioral science undermines their efforts. This is particularly apparent in the discourse around environmental behavior change, where well-intentioned experts have fostered a culture of nihilism in the populace. They don’t seem to understand that saying “the world is going to end in 12 years” will cause a substantial percentage of people to respond with “might as well get while the getting is good.” This idea, closely related to The Tragedy of the Commons, is taught in first-year psychology and sociology university courses, but seems to be routinely ignored by climate scientists and advocates.
We see this tension playing out now in our approach to the coronavirus. This time, however, politicians and the…
