Cynicism Will Ruin Your Life

The internet is a petri dish of cynicism.

If all you did was scroll Facebook you’d think the world was ending in a decade. Or during the next election cycle.

Our biological negativity bias comes out in full force thanks to the anonymous or pseudonymous nature of the internet. The reason you can’t say vitriolic things to people offline is because you’ll get punched in the face.

We watched Anne Hathaway’s new movie “The Idea of You” you last night. There is a scene where Anne’s character, Solene, is scrolling through aggressive social media comments about her and her daughter. They’re angry because Solene is dating a member of a boy band with a 16 year age gap.

In a hilarious life imitates art moment, there are fans who are irate about the 12 year age gap between Anne herself and the lead actor Nicholas Galitzine.

As far as I’ve been able to conclude, cynicism is a defense mechanism from taking responsibility for improving your own life.

“Oh he got lucky.”

“She just has pretty privilege.”

“She wouldn’t date me anyways!”

“He’s probably like that last asshole I dated.”

The problem with all of this is that it doesn’t make you any smarter, makes you less likely to achieve your desires and it primes your brain to be bitter, angry and resentful about objectively positive things.

It’s been widely observed that most people think cynical individuals are smarter. Thinking it’s a negative worldview tax, mandatory for finding life’s correct answers. In actuality, people with “lower competence” are more likely to “unconditionally embrace cynicism”.

It is all too easy to get sucked into the vortex of negative thinking online.

“A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate — where the researchers created a variety of fake accounts — found that TikTok served pro-eating disorder content to these accounts within 8 minutes and suicide content within just 2.” - H/T After Babel

Regardless of whether you initially believe or adopt these negative videos, posts or comments into your worldview, The Illusory Truth Effect will eventually propagandize you into a negative emotional state.

Here’s an easy experiment for you.

When’s the last time you spent 30 minutes on TikTok or Instagram and thought to yourself afterwards, “I feel so much better than before I scrolled.”

I’m assuming most of you intuitively know these things. It’s one thing to know something and another to act on it. If I observed your typical day you’re likely spending 2-4 hours plugged into social media.

Does anything I just told you make you want to lower that number?