The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured a paper that appeared this month in the Journal of Economic Literature about the reasons why individuals ignore information even when it is potentially useful to them in making decisions. The newspaper interviewed the authors, Carnegie Mellon University researchers David Hagmann, Russell Golman and George Loewenstein, about their work looking at why people go out of their way to avoid certain information at a time of unprecedented access to news. The paper “Information Avoidance” reviewed the existing literature on the topic and also discussed the consequences for individuals and society.

Listen to the AEA's interview with the three authors here.