Research in an Age of Distrust
Have you felt a decline in your senses of community, openness, and trust over the past decade or two? If so, you are not alone.
As a part of being a trustworthy source of information on innovations, technologies, and methods for making spaces that feel good, we at Frequency felt it necessary to do some digging on the challenges people face when doing this research on their own. Edelman’s 20204 Trust Barometer report made it clear that there are some major gaps that may prevent people from accessing and acting upon available knowledge to improve their lives.
We also found much broader concerns around the state of trust in the US and beyond. Here are some findings that jumped out at us:
According to research conducted by Pew Research, trust in the media, government, innovation, and one another is dwindling. In fact, Americans’ trust in the federal government, mass media, and science & innovation are all near all-time lows. Over 60% of people surveyed worry that established leaders in government, business, and journalism are purposely trying to mislead people. This combination of diminishing trust in leadership, information, and innovation is not a good recipe for holistic societal improvement.
Beyond these general markers of trust, we noted a few specific statistics:
67% of people view healthcare affordability as a top concern
50% of people view “made up news and info” as a top concern
45% of people don’t believe in scientist’s ability to communicate to “people like them”
59% of people get most of their information about new technologies from online search
Over 80% of people view exchange of concerns and questions between institution and audience as a trust-building activity
As we reviewed these statistics, a few conclusions jumped out:
A majority of people view healthcare affordability as a top concern, so low-effort, high-impact at-home health interventions are important right now.
Statistics 2, 3, and 4 suggest that people simultaneously worry about misinformation while relying on independent online search as their primary information source. Given that 45% of people don’t feel able to connect with primary-source scientific research, misinformation seems inevitable.
There is an overwhelming desire for transparency and communication with expert groups in innovative fields.
These conclusions triggered a realization that our research processes and findings here at Frequency should be wildly transparent in order to build trust, and that everyone involved will benefit from this transparency.
Flywheel: Transparency -> Communication & Trust -> Constantly Improving Research -> More Impact -> More Transparency -> More trust…
For this reason, our following blogs will be outlining in detail the three tenets of our research process: academic & scientific inquiry, historical & evolutionary analysis, and investigation of current trends. By aligning ourselves with processes, principles, and experts in these three types of inquiry, we aim to arrive at a holistic perspective that supports open-mindedness and curiosity while holding ourselves to rigorous standards of critical investigation.
And, by sharing these processes with you, we hope that they will continuously improve and evolve. Please respond with questions, comments, criticisms, or compliments; they all help us ensure that we’re coming to the most accurate, thoughtful, and impactful conclusions possible.