The other day, a news anchor asked on social media: “What’s happening to couples in the Northeast?”—a pretty preposterous argument to float unless one can draw a causal link suggesting that marriages are somehow more likely to end in Macbeth-like fatal murders in a particular geographical location.
What it actually is, is a fine example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion.
The term originates from a 1990s online discussion where someone mentioned they’d just heard of the Baader–Meinhof Group (a German far-left militant organisation), and then suddenly began seeing references to it everywhere. The name stuck as shorthand for this type of mental glitch—and it happens to all of us.
Take, for example, when you see a sign that says “Stalking not allowed” (quite common in the national capital, where men seem to need periodic reminders about consent). Suddenly, you start noticing similar signs everywhere. It feels like the universe is messing with you, but in reality, your brain is simply tuning into something it was previously ignoring.
Why it happens: The phenomenon is a combination of:
Selective attention – Once your brain learns about something new, it subconsciously starts scanning for it.
Confirmation bias – When you see it again, your brain takes note and thinks, “Aha! I was right—it is everywhere!”
Now, why am I telling you this? Because it’s the basis for so many of our modern anxieties.
Take the sudden barrage of news items about airplane snags after the horrific Air India crash in Ahmedabad. Suddenly, every TV channel and newspaper clipping seems to be about aviation issues—because editors and journalists aren’t immune to the frequency illusion either.
But is there any definitive proof that air travel is objectively less safe than it was a year ago? Not quite. It’s just that our brains are wired to worry. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t drag companies over the coals to ensure better quality control—but we should be diligent before jumping the gun and assuming systemic failure.
The odds of dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 8 million, whereas the odds of dying in a road accident in India are around 1 in 5,000—making road travel over 1,600 times deadlier than flying.
Maybe it’s your daily commute you should be afraid of.