Something You Should Know - Embracing Optimism & How Algorithms Narrow Your Choices

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Distractions while driving can be dangerous. Good drivers know they need to minimize distractions. However, some things that are intended to deliberately distract drivers, such as billboards. And it turns out certain types of billboards can be REALLY distracting. Listen as I explain. Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2280521/ It would seem that being an optimist would be better than being a pessimist. But is it something you can really change? And why do some people see the glass half empty, and some see it half full? It turns out that the science of optimism is fascinating and there is a lot we can do to become more optimistic about the world and our lives. Joining me to explain how is Dr. Sue Varma. She is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University. She is also author of a book called Practical Optimism: The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being (https://amzn.to/3TbPjv5). When you search online for something whether it’s a movie on Netflix or a screwdriver on Amazon, the choices you see are determined by an algorithm. In other words, you don’t see every screwdriver in the world, you see the ones the algorithm has determined you might like. While that may be good for a screwdriver, it may be very limiting when it comes to other things. Here to explain why this is important is Kyle Chayka. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes a column on digital technology and the impact of the Internet and social media on culture and he is author of the book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture (https://amzn.to/4bSgpj6). Everyone knows that it is dangerous to drive if you have been drinking. However, driving when you're sick may be even more dangerous. Listen as I reveal how even a slight cold can affect your body and put you at risk when you drive. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2283323 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Indeed is offering SYSK listeners a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING We love the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast! https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/business-podcasts/think-fast-talk-smart-podcast Go to https://uscellular.com/TryUS and download the USCellular TryUS app to get 30 days of FREE service! Keep you current phone, carrier & number while testing a new network. Try us out and make your switch with confidence! NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending! Compare and find smarter credit cards, savings accounts, and more today at https://NerdWallet.com TurboTax Experts make all your moves count — filing with 100% accuracy and getting your max refund, guaranteed! See guarantee details at https://TurboTax.com/Guarantees Dell TechFest starts now! To thank you for 40 unforgettable years, Dell Technologies is celebrating with anniversary savings on their most popular tech. Shop at https://Del.com/deals to access great deals on leading-edge technology & free shipping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, how some billboards can actually mess up your driving. Then, understanding optimism and all the reasons to worry less and be more optimistic. What we found, what research has found, is that 85% of the time, things that you worry about don't actually happen. And when they do, you're better equipped to handle them than you actually gave yourself credit for. And this is a really important point for people to take home. Also, how driving with a cold could be worse than driving drunk.

And algorithms. They make recommendations for everything you buy online. But is that a good thing? There's so much frictionlessness on the internet now that just encourages you to just go with that first recommendation. It works for some things. In other places, I think it's made us into worse consumers. All this today on Something You Should Know. From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves

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Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hello. Welcome to Something You Should Know. I'm one of those people who likes to drive. I've always liked to drive. And as a good driver, I know that one of the most important rules of driving is to keep your eyes on the road. But that can be difficult when you're distracted by, say, a billboard. And it turns out that certain billboards are more distracting

and potentially dangerous than others. A study showed that billboards can affect how you drive depending on the message on the billboard. The study discovered that drivers tend to speed up after passing billboards with enticing messages or images, such as cash or fame or sex appeal. Depressing billboards were dangerous, too. After passing billboards with negative words and images, such as abuse, stress, prison, or war,

drivers had a tendency to slow down and drift from their lane. All these things can cause accidents. Of course, any kind of distraction is risky when you're driving, slow down, and drift from their lane. All these things can cause accidents. Of course, any kind of distraction is risky when you're driving, but it appears to be an even larger risk when the message that you're distracted by is emotional. And that is something you should know. It's always fascinated me how two people can see the world and life and situation so differently, depending on whether they're an optimist or a pessimist.

Is the glass half full or half empty? It would seem that being an optimist would be easier, but then a pessimist might say, well, just looking at the bright side of life isn't realistic. Bad things happen. The world can be a dark place, and you have to expect that. Well, regardless of where your beliefs are, I'd like you to listen to Sue Varma. She's a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University.

She's author of a book called Practical Optimism, The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being. Hi, Sue. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Michael. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me today. So let's start by just, if you would explain from your perspective as a psychiatrist and somebody who has studied this, what is an optimist yes so an optimist is somebody who naturally tends to envision a favorable outcome when all possible outcomes are possible and some of us are born with this quality and then some of us actually have to learn it

that was the most interesting part of my journey and research into optimism is that while there are some people who naturally see the glass half full, the rest of us have the ability to get there through certain skills and techniques. So why do we have this difference? Why is the glass half full for some people and half empty for others? You know, it might be intuitive to think that optimism is genetic or that you're born with it, right? And that is true. And what I was fascinated by is that researchers have found that there is potentially a genetic association with optimism, that there are these genes that code for the oxytocin receptor gene. And we might've heard about oxytocin, the cuddle and bonding hormone, something that mothers have when bonding with babies, that friends have, that partners, romantic partners have

when they spend time with each other, have intimacy. But what's interesting is that these genes actually code for social skills, emotional regulation skills, and that is something we can work on. So the reality is that only 25% of optimism is genetic. The rest of it is learned and within our control if we can do certain things right. It would also seem real normal and obvious that if you grew up in a household where everybody was pessimist, that you would likely be one, too. If your parents saw the glass half empty, if everything was a problem, if nothing went right, and you heard that over and over again, seems like that would get hammered into your brain and you would believe the same thing.

Absolutely. And family environment and also like the neighborhood in which we grew up. So we actually know that, for example, when you look at kids and you take them from, let's say, a lower income neighborhood and you put them, they move their family into a higher income neighborhood or even getting bused into schools where students have higher income, this changes the way they see the world. They see the world as being possible. They see success as being probable. And it really boosts a sense of self-efficacy, which is an important part of optimism. So while family environment plays a role, genetics plays a role, but so does our peer support system. And also just seeing having

positive role models around us also makes a big difference for optimism. It does seem, and you hear people talk about this all the time, that the negativity bias of life, that when things go wrong, you notice it more than when things go right. And then that reinforces your belief that the world sucks and everybody's mean and you can't get anywhere. And what about that? For sure. And I think that it's protective on some level to have a negativity bias. Look, our brain's job is to keep us alive. It's our job to keep us happy. And this is an important thing. If you recognize that my brain wants to protect me, it's responsible for my survival. So it's going to look for danger,

right? The problem is that when you're consistently looking for danger, your mind shuts off to the possibility of beautiful things happening. So when I talk about optimism, in no way am I saying, you know, it's enough to want, to wish, to hope for good things to happen. Absolutely, you need to make it happen. But also recognize that it's not enough to actively work on boosting your optimism. You actively have to be aware of your own pessimism, including your own negativity bias, which is natural. We will all have some of that, depending on what situation we're dealing with and how important it is to us.

Yeah, because I can be pretty optimistic about some things and pretty pessimistic about others. It seems to be pretty situational. But I imagine that people, well, let me ask you, do you think people have a pretty good sense of where they are on the scale of optimism and pessimism? Or do they tend to think, no, I'm just realistic? Yes. You know, that's a very interesting question. And I think part of it depends on how self-aware and in tune a person is to their own thoughts and feelings and how aware they want to get. Because I think a lot of times some of us don't want to invest too much into our thoughts. We find being with our thoughts,

alone with our thoughts, a scary place to be. So self-awareness is going to obviously guide that. But also that there are a lot of like very quick inventories online where a person can easily look up, like where do they fall on the optimism, pessimism? Asking somebody, generally speaking, do you tend to anticipate favorable outcomes? person can easily look up like where do they fall on the optimism pessimism asking somebody generally speaking do you tend to anticipate favorable outcomes when there is a like something

is not clear how things are going to turn out or you can even look at pictures or images for example in studies and they will show people a picture of a car accident and then they will say let us know what you think how is this car accident situation going to end? The optimist will say, oh, everything will be fine. They'll get treatment. It's not as bad. Maybe they only got a few scratches. Pessimists might answer, oh my God, things are going to be really bad. They'll never get better. They've got a lot of damage to the car, to themselves. So I think it's important for people to know because knowing which camp you fall into is the first step to making lifestyle and mental health changes. One of the things that always interests me, because I can be pretty pessimistic sometimes and maybe see the car accident and think, oh no,

especially if I would be in it, that it's very end of the world kind of thinking. And yet I know intellectually, I know things have a tendency to work out, that it seldom is anything so devastating that it ruins your life. But in the moment, it does seem that way. Absolutely. And in my work as a psychiatrist and cognitive behavioral therapist, and also someone who went through cognitive behavioral therapy themselves, I can tell you that our mind wants to go to the worst case scenario. We call it catastrophizing.

These are what we call cognitive distortions. So sort of negative, skewed ways of thinking that don't always represent reality. So something like black and white thinking, it's either going to turn out perfect, or it's going to go horrible, or fortune telling, jumping to conclusions, and making assumptions about a situation, making projections, making inferences without having all the information. And what we do is, number one, you have to be aware that I have a tendency to ruminate in negative situations. I have a tendency to catastrophize. Imagine the worst case. And what we found, what research has found is that 85% of the time, things that you worry about don't actually happen. And when they

do, you're better equipped to handle them than you actually gave yourself credit for. And this is a really important point for people to take home. I get the sense that there are people who are fairly pessimistic, who believe that they just have a realistic view of the world, and they're very happy in it, and that if they were to become optimistic, they kind of wouldn't know what to do with that.

Look, there is some truth to the fact that these pessimists who are walking around thinking that they're realistic, they actually are. And we know that pessimists actually have a more realistic perception and read on some situations some of the time than most people do. The problem is that pessimists have a tendency to engage in what we call the three P's pessimism. And this is based on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, who, even though is one of the founders and pioneers of positive psychology, started his work and research learning about depression and pessimism. And I've added a fourth P. So the three P's according to Dr. Seligman are a pessimist has a tendency to take negative things personally. They have a tendency to think negative things are permanent and they believe that the negative event is pervasive or indicative of other aspects of their life. And as a result, my fourth P is that they become passive. And I'll give you an example. A pessimist, let's say

somebody failed an exam. Let's say they're trying to get a certification as an adult, and they failed. And they're like, it's me. I take it personally. I'm horrible. I suck at this. I'm never going to get better. Maybe I'm just not good at the subject. know, I'm horrible. I suck at this. I'm never going to get better. Maybe I'm just not good at the subject. And maybe I'm just like kind of a loser. So they look at things that in the future are not going to get better and also indicative of other aspects of their life. In general, pessimists have a tendency to be realistic, but then they get mired in that negativity and that negativity creates inaction. My guest today is Sue Varma. She's author of a book called Practical Optimism, The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being.

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and arts and crafts for creative thinking. Melissa and Doug makes toys that help kids take on the world because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend, the skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. So Sue, it seems to me, I can't think of anybody that I know in my life that one day they're a pessimist and maybe you don't see them for a while and a couple of months later or a couple of years later you see them and they're all of a sudden they're an optimist. I don't have the experience of seeing people change much on this spectrum. Yes. What I've learned over the years is, is how do we take all that we know about the science of

optimism, right? And there really is a lot of science, Michael, it's really beautiful and it's very robust. And it's not something that I knew until many years later. And then years later, I was selected to be the head of this program. And I learned a lot about resilience, about the human spirit and how some people, despite extremely tragic, horrific circumstances, not only survive, but they thrive. And I really wanted to understand what can we learn from these folks? And then how can we take the best information and then help apply it to people who may not experience those horrific extreme circumstances, but are still contending with daily life? And I learned that optimism has so many benefits, literally from head to toe, that it can prevent or help decrease anxiety or depression in people, of course, decreases

pessimism, but also can promote a longer, healthier life. We know that optimists live on average 10% to 15% longer. They enjoy exceptional longevity. They live into their 80s with great health. They have a tendency to have less cardiac disease and less heart attacks and less strokes. And this was coming from a JAMA study, one of the most respected journals in the world, and did a meta-analysis of about 200,000 people. So I then said to myself, we have to codify what it is that these optimists are doing, and we have to make it available to everybody. Isn't it also true? I mean, and it seems just natural and logical and obvious that optimists are, I don't know if happier is the,

is the right word, but, but they seem to enjoy their life more. They're not mired in everything that's wrong. They look at what's right. Yes. They focus on what's right, right? And then they maximize it, you know? So to me, it's not so important whether you have a natural tendency to look at the glass half empty or half full. I want you to know that the glass is always refillable. And what I mean by that is that there are certain things that you can do to help you, whether it is a shift in your mindset, whether it is asking for help, whether it is creating a tribe of mentors or board of advisors of us literally are just not going to be born or have a family environment or have a social environment where the deck is stacked against us for any number of reasons. Things are not working out, one tragedy or trauma after another. And what I learned is that you can take a certain mindset, skill set, pool set, action set, which is what

practical optimism is. It's a practice, but it's something you have to practice if it doesn't come naturally to you. And I can say to you is that I still practice it. What I learned from my own cognitive behavioral therapy is that, okay, maybe I have a tendency, like you said, to look at the worst case scenario, but I don't want to dwell in my pessimism. I want to dwell in possibility. And I end up creating possibility and creating the opportunity for me to be an agent of change in my own life. And I've had many stumbling blocks along the way and many people who didn't believe in

me and the possibilities that I thought as a young, younger person I was capable of. And there were many roadblocks and losses and grief and disappointment. But the point is, are you able to turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones by being actionable, by being proactive? And that's how practical optimism differs from this term that we're hearing a lot about these days is toxic positivity. You talk about reframing, that is to change the way you look at a situation. The situation is what it is. It's how you look at it that matters and that you can change that. So talk about that.

This is something that's very hard. And I've worked with survivors of trauma for many years. And sometimes you can't because you're like, I'm not finding the silver lining in this. There is none. And I 100 personally one of the hardest parts I grew up in an eastern background philosophy household and they would say to me my parents would say to me when I was I was ever struggling with something something big they would say is this a problem to be solved or is it a truth to be accepted is it a problem to be solved or a truth to be accepted and it was just so profound because it forces you to choose if it's a problem to be solved then get cracking and if it's the truth to be accepted then you have to sit with it it seems as if from what you're saying that that the hope it isn't either or you're not either an optimist or a pessimist and if you're a

pessimist you don't flip a switch that that what you're trying to do is move down the scale is, is be, become a more optimistic, not become this wide eyed optimist that isn't you. Yes. Yes. To find the, the optimism within you and to maximize it as much as possible, because really it's not just about these positive outlooks in life. You want to turn those positive outlooks into positive outcomes. And so when you were asking about problem solving, like that is the next pillar is like, I'm 100% all about do everything in your power to achieve the positive outlook that you're looking for. And part of this is anticipating obstacles and being able to work around for. And part of this is anticipating obstacles

and being able to work around them. And that's something I see that a lot of people don't do enough. When if they are experiencing blind optimism, which is toxic positivity, everything will work out. And I'll give you an example. Let's say a person goes to the doctor and the doctor's like, you know, your cholesterol is elevated, you're borderline diabetic, and the person who's experiencing blind optimism will say, oh, everything will work out. It's fine. Doctor, you're worrying too much. Or they'll tell their partner, you're worrying too much. It's fine. And it's not fine, right? This is called the ostrich effect, where you bury your head in the sand and you think everything will work out. So we're definitely not suggesting that you end up like that. But being able to be very clear

about these are the steps that I need to achieve. And this is how I'm going to get there. And this is what could potentially come in my way. And this is how I'm going to solve for it. This is the essence of problem solving. It's also important to recognize that anytime we're dealing with stress, we're contending with a battle on two fronts. One is out there in the real world, and then one is in our own mind. And we have to be actively regulating our emotions by naming, claiming, taming, and reframing. Reframing is a huge part of this. And I give people like a list of ways you can reframe your negative thoughts, whether it is asking yourself, what would I tell a friend in this situation?'d probably be more compassionate more kind more caring more understanding if a if a friend was dealing with this problem ask yourself this other question how am I

gonna feel about this problem a year from now how am I gonna feel about this problem five years from now is it gonna be as big of a deal as I think it now and if it is then you spend the time and you do your due diligence. But almost nothing is ever as big a deal five years from now as it is now. I mean, it just isn't, but it's sometimes so hard to see that because you start ruminating on it. But even what you just said about, you know, I, okay. So put health aside, you know, your health is your health. Okay. I get that. But, but when, when it does seem that you've got problems, like, you know, the roof is leaking and there's a flat tire and

well, those things all do work out. They always work out. But it's easy to get so taken over by them that you think they won't. But they always do. I mean, you can't not get your roof fixed. You can't not fix the tire. It's going to happen. It's going to be a pain in the neck. But that's another thing is you can approach it like a pain in the neck, or you can just approach it as life's handed you this

fix it and move on yes yes and there's this great saying that you know i'm borrowing from someone else that says that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional and suffering is the spin the added negative spin that we're adding to an already difficult situation Well, this is a lot to think about And I think really good news It's very hopeful that we can bring more optimism with some effort And maybe make life better I've been speaking with Sue Varma

Who is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice A clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University, and author of the book Practical Optimism, the Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here today, Sue. Thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind.

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Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. If you spend any time online, much of what you see, or don't see, is determined by algorithms. And that may make it convenient in some cases, like if you're looking for a restaurant to go to. But when you think about it a little deeper, it's a little concerning. Choices that look like yours aren't really yours.

Algorithms determine what you might like, so your view of the world and of possibilities is being filtered by algorithms from social media and on shopping sites. And you haven't probably thought too much about the implications of this, but fortunately, Kyle Chyka has. Kyle is a staff writer at The New Yorker where he writes a column on digital technology and the impact of the internet on culture.

And he is author of a book called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened the Curve. Hi, Kyle. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me. So people, you know, everybody's heard of algorithms, but I don't necessarily, I know I can speak for myself, I don't necessarily know exactly how they work. I don't think most of us know how they work. So can you explain it?

It's true. I mean, how these things work is that your actions on a platform and everyone else's decisions on Facebook or Twitter are getting surveilled all the time. So the platform is figuring out what you're doing, what everyone else is doing, and using all of that data to predict what you might be interested in specifically. And in some ways, that can be good. Like you can't figure out that for yourself. You can't look at everything online and know what might be interesting to you. But I do think since algorithmic recommendations have become so dominant, it's become harder and harder to get outside of that and to actually consume things intentionally and not have your kind of horizons or perspective limited by what already

is tailored to you. Well, it seems to kind of prey on our laziness, doesn't it? It's like, you know, it makes it so much easier because well look there's there's something we could do and i didn't have to think to come up with it for sure yeah i think a big part of this is that the internet has turned us into more passive consumers so rather than choosing who to follow for example or looking for a particular kind of film or TV show on Netflix. What we're most often doing these days is following the results of algorithmic recommendations. When we do that, I mean, I understand what you said, but is there any

real harm here or is it just, it's just kind of lazy? I mean, I think it is lazy. It kind of robs us of some of our agency as consumers of all of this content, music and film and visual art and literature in a lot of ways. And I think what these recommendations are doing and what our passivity is doing is making all these forms more homogenous. Like it's limiting the creativity of what artists can put out. It's limiting what we think of as popular or what we think of as acceptable in a given art form. We're kind of lowering it to the lowest common denominator. You know, it would be great. I can't imagine anyone's done this, but maybe they have where, you know, you somebody makes their own choices and then we run the algorithm and see how their choices matched up with what the algorithm chose and and like like how close was it? what we would organically be interested in from what these feeds deliver us, just because we're given so little opportunity right now to make all of our own decisions. But I'd love to see algorithms that work differently or more personalized to us,

or that we can actually talk back to and adjust rather than just having to go with how they work at a given moment. Is that a thing? It's not so far. Right now, there are regulations in the EU that kind of mandate tech companies to do that. So they force tech companies to allow you to disable algorithmic recommendations, for example, or force them to make it transparent how these recommendations or feeds are working. And how are they working? How do they, how do they, I mean, I got what you said about it looks at your behavior and

maybe that's the beginning and end of it, but how there must be more to it than that. I mean, each tech platform that we use, whether it's like Netflix or Facebook or TikTok feed, each of these algorithmic recommendations work differently. So the technical term for these are recommender systems. And it's basically a piece of technology that sorts through all of the content online and then picks out what might be interesting to you specifically. And so each platform has a different equation to determine which pieces of content they're going to serve up to you. And the variables are all different. They're all weighted differently.

But the main one is engagement. So a piece of content that has already been popular, that a lot of people have already hit the like button on, that is going to be more likely to be served to you than a piece of content that's not been popular, that a lot of people have already hit the like button on, that is going to be more likely to be served to you than a piece of content that's not so popular. Help me understand. So if I'm watching Netflix and I watch a movie and, you know, when it's over, I get the, you know,

you might like or whatever movies like this or whatever. Is it because the movies that they're recommending are like the movies that they're recommending are like the movies I just watched? Or Netflix is determining that because you like this movie, you might like these other movies because we know about you. In other words, do other people get the same five movies you might like because they watch the movie? Or is there something about the algorithm that's personal to me? It's hard to tell just how personal it is. And I think that's one of the problems with all of

these systems. So for Netflix specifically, it's changed over time. So when Netflix first had recommendations, it was really tailored to you specifically. And that usually works by a genre. So say you liked British crime dramas that take place, you know, at night, like, it'll hone in on the very specific type of content that you like, and serve you more and more of that. But I think many users, myself included, have noticed that over time, Netflix has prioritized not just what genres you like, but what content it's promoting at a given time. So now more often, the Netflix homepage or things like the top 10 most viewed shows, or, you know, recently new additions for you. And these are very vague titles. And they often amount to the same five shows that everyone else is getting served as well.

Yeah. Well, it's it also seems like when you if you watch a Tom Cruise movie, well, they recommend a lot of other Tom Cruise movies. And it's just because Tom Cruise is in it, not because, you know, it seems like it has more to do with the movie than with me. Exactly. And there's, those are different strategies for filtering content. So that's that the Tom Cruise thing, for example, is content based recommendation. So that's recommending it based on what is in the content that you're looking at. So if you like one Tom Cruise movie, maybe you'll like others. And that's different from collaborative social filtering, which works by comparing your taste to other users' taste in a much broader way. Like the kind of constellation of different

things that you like might match up with the constellation of different things that someone else likes. And then the system can use that relationship to maybe give more interesting recommendations. Since you've looked at this, is it safe to say, even though you may not like the idea of how algorithms basically limit your choices, put that aside for a moment. Are these algorithms good at what they're trying to do? It's definitely an advanced piece of technology. Like we all talk about AI these days, but machine learning algorithms and content recommendations are a form of AI that we've been interacting with for, you know, almost a decade now or a decade or more. So they're very advanced. They're very smart.

They are able to give very targeted recommendations. I think the YouTube algorithm is often pretty good at giving very niche specific recommendations. But I think too often now, the ability, the capability of the technology has been yoked to just the needs of the platform. So rather than Netflix digging up the most interesting obscure film that will appeal to you, it's just going to give you the latest thing that they bought the rights to. It's easier to send you another episode of The Office than it is to truly measure your personal taste and give you something new. So I think it's not that the technology is inherently bad. It's just being

applied in a way that often misleads us. When I get those kind of recommendations, I don't, I mean, I, I don't think of myself as, as all that out of the norm, but I don't just automatically believe them. I mean, one of the first things I do is look at like, how many stars does it have? What are the reviews say? And, and, and in other words, I'm just not, I'm not following people off the cliff just because people jump off the cliff, even though I'm using the algorithm as a starting point. It's true. I mean, you have to take into account other factors and other data. And that's a good thing that you can do for yourself. Like go one level deeper, look at reviews of a show,

look at the star rating of a restaurant, maybe read a review in a newspaper or something. But I think it's algorithmic feeds have made it very easy for us to not take that extra step and just kind of believe whatever the Netflix homepage is suggesting for us. But restaurants to me would be an example of where, you know, reviews are really important. If everybody's going there and giving it one star, well, I don't care what the algorithm says. I'm not probably going to go there. Right. I mean, algorithmic recommendations are often built on that kind of data.

So they're built on many, many user reviews and interactions on a tool like Google Maps or Yelp. And so the star ratings give you a really good idea of if that restaurant might be good or not. But you do have to think about that and kind of make a judgment for yourself like making the judgment between a three-star and a four-star restaurant for example like you may disagree with the bulk of reviewers something i've always wondered about is when when i like well movies would be the best example so So I'm going to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime or something, and it'll say it has four stars. Does everybody see four stars? Or are they saying of people like you, it has four stars? Or is it objectively everybody four stars? It's a great question. And we don't really know. I mean, one of the problems with these systems, I think, is that they don't make the data

transparent enough. And I mean, add to that the fact that a lot of data on the Internet is now gamed by bots or spam accounts. So if you go on Amazon to take it away from film, you know, a toaster might have a thousand reviews and it might be four and a half stars, but 500 reviews of those might be fake bot reviews that the creator, the manufacturer commissioned to make their products look better. So it's actually hard to trust all of these reviews at this point.

Really? So reviews are not a good way to go? Well, it depends on the platform you're looking at. So there's a movie filtering social network called Letterboxd. And that has a lot of people rating their favorite films, giving them star ratings, writing little reviews. And that social network is really about individual human beings. So that's about people building up their accounts. There's very little incentive to game it. It's not about making money. It's just about people expressing their taste. And so a review site like that, I tend to really trust, but I don't It's like 473 sold this month. Is that, what is that? I mean, it's such a surreal aspect of commerce online at this point. Like there's so much real time data that Amazon can show you or purport to show you how many have been sold recently. And presumably that's to argue that you should buy it too. Like if 400 other people

have bought this thing, it'll probably be okay for you too. But what does it mean? I think it's kind of ultimately a meaningless number. Like, is that a lot or a little? Do those people like that? Do they return it? You know, it's it actually tells you very little about the thing itself. It's yeah, but it's it seems like they wouldn't be telling you that if it was a small amount like, right? I mean, they would like five sold this month, right? It never said It never says two, right? Yes. It's always thousands or hundreds or something. The implication I think is, or the inference I take from that is, wow, that's a lot. Right. And it's meant to be convincing to you. I mean, I think a lot of these platforms essentially use data to convince you to consume that thing, whether it's accurate or to your taste or not. I mean, it's the same with TikTok videos. You see a video that has a million

views. You think it's probably going to be funny or relevant or good for you to watch it too, because so many other people have liked it. But I think I mean, I think those metrics can work well for a commercial product like a toaster or something or a blender. Like great 500 other people have bought this blender. But I think it doesn't work as well for a musician's album, for example, or a film or, you know, a niche restaurant that you might go to. I don't want to see everything ruled just by popularity. If algorithms are doing, I mean, can't algorithms be faulty? Can't what they're telling you be baloney? Or can't the company just make stuff up?

Maybe 473 people didn't buy it. For sure. I mean, there's this academic term called corrupt personalization, which means personalization that looks like it's tailored for you, but it's actually not. It's just like an illusion of that. And I think we see that, I mean, in a piece of data like the Amazon numbers, we're not sure if they're real or fake. I think lately on X, formerly known as Twitter, people have discovered that the view metrics on posts are essentially

fake. Like it's not possible that they're accurate. So there's a lot of these numbers and metrics that are being used to convince you as if they're true reflections of reality when they really are not. Well, does anybody ask, does anybody say, hey, Amazon, is this real or are you making, are you absolutely certain this data is accurate? And if so, what do they say? I don't know about investigative reporters, but I would assume that Amazon would tell you that it's true. And maybe it is true, but I think we don't would tell you that it's true. And maybe it is true,

but I think we don't have the kind of fact-checking culture or vetted reviews in the way that we used to with consumer reports, for example. Or the Wirecutter is a website that strenuously tests products on their own and they use their own data and experiments to convince you that this thing is worthwhile. So I think there's other routes through this that rely more on direct human testing and investigation. Yeah, well, and Consumer Reports still does that. But if I'm going to go to Amazon and buy a screwdriver

or something small and one has 5,000 five-star reviews and one doesn't, one has no reviews or two-star reviews, guess what I'm going to buy? I mean, it's not a big decision, but I might as well go with the crowd. Totally. And in that case, it's really good for a screwdriver. Like I find myself doing this all the time. A podcast microphone, a pair of headphones, you know, a phone charger. Those are all easy, convenient decisions to make that you can just buy the thing with one click and be pretty sure that it'll be fine. But I think now we apply those same metrics to pieces of culture that we experience. Like,

we listen to the music that the most other people listen to. We watch the videos that have already gone viral. And I think that kind of cuts out some other more unique experiences that we might have. To which I would imagine the argument is, well, you don't have to listen to the algorithm. You, you can go look for your own unique quirky off the wall stuff. I mean, no one's forcing you. Right. No one is forcing you. I mean, a big reminder of the book is that you can just log off. Like you can get outside of these platforms and make your own decisions pretty easily. But particularly for my generation of millennials, we really grew up online and on all these social networks.

And they've often seemed inescapable, even if they aren't. So I wanted to use my writing and use this research to just remind people in part that you don't have to listen to the algorithm. But in some cases, I mean, I use them, I think, mostly like I would use a friend recommendation. It's a tool. It's one piece of the puzzle to make a decision. But I'm not a slave to it. Right. I mean, you're doing your own work. So you're assembling different pieces of information and using all of those to make your decision. Depending on what it is. rating, you're going to look at, you're going to read reviews, you're going to look at their Instagram or, you know, talk to a friend who's been there. So I think I want to encourage people to do that work themselves and kind of assemble the facts yourself rather than just being passive. But like, if something like a cruise, you're going to go on a cruise, and if you don't know

much about cruises, you're going to have to want to start with some sort of algorithm that gives you or something that gives you reviews or you know if you like this you'll like that or something that would as a starting point because I like I wouldn't know where to begin. I could call a cruise company and say so tell me about your cruises. That's going to be a long journey to get to what I want. Totally. So a good, I think it is a good starting point. Like booking.com is a big tourism website and you can find flights and cruises and hotels and whatever.

So a search on there is going to give you a great set of results to start looking at. But again, those are totally filtered by the number of stars that they have, the number of user ratings, you know, how many other people have liked this particular thing. So I think, again, you have to take it as a starting point rather than the end point and not just drift to that first choice that you have in the feed. it's like it's like we were saying at the very beginning here it it really feeds right into human laziness that you know well this is the fast way to find what you're looking for may not be the best way but it's a pretty fast way because all these other people are doing it and look, they recommended it. And so what more

do you need? Right. There's so much frictionlessness on the internet now that just encourages you to not think about the decision, to not talk to anyone about it and just go with that first recommendation. And I think, I mean, it works for some things in other places, I think it's made us into worse consumers and kind of worse stewards of our own tastes and preferences and life experiences. Well, I wanted you to come on and talk about this because, you know, this is something I've never really thought about, that all these algorithms are really limiting my options, limiting my choices. I've always thought of it as a convenience, but this is a different way of looking at it that I think is, well, it's eye-opening. I've been speaking with Kyle Chyka,

who is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and the name of his book is Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for coming on today, Kyle. Thanks so much, Mac. It was fun to be here. This may sound hard to believe, but driving with a cold can be more dangerous than driving drunk. Researchers compared the reaction times of cold sufferers with the reaction times of people with alcohol blood levels

above the legal limit. The results found that cold sufferers have even lower alertness levels than those who had been drinking. Those people who were suffering from a cold had a tendency to follow too closely and took longer to stop the car. When your body is fighting an infection, memory and movement can be impaired, regardless of the severity of the sickness. And on top of that, if you add in a sneeze, you're increasing the risk.

A sneeze can take your eyes off the road for as much as three full seconds. And that is something you should know. If the opportunity comes up in your conversations with other people, Three full seconds. And that is something you should know. If the opportunity comes up in your conversations with other people, it would be greatly appreciated if you would mention this podcast and ask those people to give a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love Top Ten lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast,

Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically

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