Our World in Data has a very in-depth page on Causes of Death from around the world. Then they asked: Does the news reflect what we die from? What if they compared what we read in the news and the raw data? Here is a chart that compares actual death stats against Google search data and the mentions of causes of death in both the New York Times and The Guardian newspapers (click to enlarge):
Two-thirds of us will die from either heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or kidney disease. Meanwhile, over 70% of the causes of death you’ll read about in the news are either murder, suicide, or terrorism.
What about the disconnect between reality and what we read in the news about becoming wealthy? Here’s my quick take using a Google Spreadsheet (obviously not exact or based on actual data):
Most people probably realize that the news does not exactly reflect the real world. However, we can still unconsciously develop a “bias for single events”, even with financial topics. There’s also “social media bias” where what you see is only the highly-edited positive clips of their life. You see their #bestlife, but what you don’t see are their credit card debt, the downpayment from the Bank of Mom and Dad, or anxiety attacks about money.