A review by kylegarvey
The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

fast-paced

3.0

Petty dilemmas, pedestrian run-throughs, impossible-to-straighten kinks. Yes, these biases and society-wide psychological issues are concerns, but i fail to see still why I'm reading a little dispatch on it. And from a hopped-up millennial no less! (Younger than me somehow!) Ha. No, I kid. I honestly don't mind her much, appreciate the soul-baring she did. "My fixation with modern irrationality took root while I was writing a book about cults" she writes (11) and "While magical thinking is an age-old quirk, overthinking feels distinct to the modern era—a product of our innate superstitions clashing with information overload, mass loneliness, and a capitalistic pressure to 'know' everything under the sun" (13). Ah, yes. 

 

We start with halo effect, and it's in this early chapter where I think Montell blends pop-sci reporting and her memoir best. "as an adolescent, one of my unhealthiest social habits was engaging in lopsided friendships where I felt more like a fan than an equal, drawing false conclusions that because the popular girl in school had a bright smile and effortless charisma, she’d make a loyal confidante" (22). Nice. And we even hit upon a fine, novel image: "When the modern mind is starved of nourishment, sometimes it tries to nurse in uncanny places where no milk can be found" (28). Yes, "modern mind": lol. Do I have one of those? Don't we all? 

 

We move soon to proportionality bias, where memoir's still held, a little. Info kids these days might prefer "they could access for free on their phones, to tell them in certain terms that there was one big, on-purpose reason why they were feeling terrible and the world couldn’t breathe, not a haphazard miscellany of tiny reasons that looked different for everyone" (37); and furthermore, Montell writes, "my choices didn’t make me an indefensible numbskull. They made me a social creature, full of hope, who wanted a beautiful story to be told about her. Fundamentally, that’s still who I am" (60). Awww! 

 

More interestingly, I guess, is trying to tenderly, gradually deprogram people from 'cult of one' harshness: "if you want to help, Savage said you can let the person know, even if you haven’t spoken to them in a while, that if they ever want to get out—to stay somewhere, or even just chat—you will be there. You won’t judge, interrogate, or throw it in their face. You’ll just pick up the phone, open the door. If the person is anything like I was, they might not be effusively receptive to this offer; they might scoff and dismiss" (65). 

 

In Chapter 4, when Sylvia Plath pops up briefly during discussions on zero-sum bias, her suicide glibly set aside, the quickness, elsewhere a blessing for Montell, becomes a curse (68). Much better, to me, is when money comes up briefly: "The overthinkers among us (hi) are well positioned to turn our already clunky instincts about money into full-blown paranoias that everyone we trade with for anything—not just cash, but time, clout, or ideas—exists only to deplete us" (70). 

 

Many of the following blur together, unfortunately. Survivorship bias plugs into Youtube (91), recency illusion plugs into shallow 24/7 news (where tech critic Jenny Odell says "capitalistic pressure to 'colonize the self,' to treat our bodies and minds like productivity machines, is identical to that which colonizes our time with excess news" (99)), and then overconfidence bias plugs into subtler media (where "American culture provides such mixed messaging on the matter of confidence. Flaunt your accomplishments, but don’t be a narcissist. Be authentic, but also be perfect. Tell the casting director you can tap-dance even if you can’t and someone else is better for the job" (120).