Why does it feel so hard to form an opinion these days?
As kids, we probably all had strong opinions on a few things: pickles are gross, grownups are boring, school is hard, etc, etc. But when tasked with coming up with an opinion now, say, for an article or a class paper, it might be easier said than done.
One factor that comes into play – now that our brains have developed the proper channels to recognize it – is the factor of nuance. Sure, maybe school is hard, but now I understand that it can also be rewarding at the same time. Holding a nuanced view on things is pretty essential to existing in the world today.
However, our world has been complex for a long time. My parents live more or less in the same world as I do, and they don’t have nearly as much trouble making decisions as I do. So what’s the difference?
A few weeks ago, I watched a video essay on YouTube called “The Real Reason Gen Z Isn’t Growing Up.” The creator, Casey Simpson, uses this video to explain some of the reasons he believes our generation seems so “behind” compared to our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. One big reason he cites is that we’ve grown up in the digital age and been steeped in short-form content for almost as long as we’ve been online.
Picture this: it’s a chill Friday night, your homework is done, and you want to put on a movie. You open Netflix, scroll through a few rows of movies, but feeling overwhelmed by the choices, you end up scrolling on TikTok or Reels for two hours instead.
Two things are happening in this situation: for one, a Netflix movie requires you to make a decision on what you watch, while scrolling requires none; secondly, scrolling through an endless feed gives you endless opportunity for instant dopamine hits, while a full-length movie might only provide such spikes every few minutes.
We are so used to the mindless act of scrolling that simple decisions such as picking a movie start to feel impossible. And something that holds more weight, like who to vote for? That might be out of the question.
Aside from short-form content, there’s another agent that has recently come into play– (my friends might be able to guess what I’m going to say) artificial intelligence!
Remember when you had to do the work of picking which links to visit during a Google search, instead of just reading what the AI overview gives you? Remember when it was easier to write a pros and cons list than to ask a bot for help with a decision? A lot of people simply aren’t using those decision-making brain muscles anymore, and neural connections are use-it-or-lose-it.
Maybe this is just me and the indecisive people I hang out with, but I have a suspicion that it is not an isolated phenomenon. As new technology becomes irreversibly integrated into our lives, there are simply more entities telling us what to think, and fewer choices that we actually have to make.
For a lot of opinions we have to form, like whether a movie was good or bad, sure, go find a TikTok about it and take that opinion. But I sincerely hope that none of you used AI to make decisions on how you vote.