Book review: You're Not So Smart by David McRaney

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."  This famous Matrix quote could have been the starting lines of this wonderful book You're Not So Smart by David McRaney. After reading this, there really is no turning back. You will see the world differently. And you will see yourself differently.

If it wasn't clear already, this book is about psychology. It tells 48 things about behavior and people, that changes the way you see the world. There's so many great things in the book, that it's impossible to raise any one out from there. There are articles about how our behavior can and is manipulated, how we incorrectly believe the world to be, how our memory works and lots and lots of more. I'm sure I'm going to write many things related to this book for months ahead.

The book is like a Mythbusters of human behavior. Every article even starts by telling misconception and truth, bit similarly to mythbusters. The only thing in this book is that all the myths are busted. These are not made up by David McRaney, but all of these are from psychological studies from all over the world. David has just made it easy and joyful to read.

I have to warn that it's not easy to read. You have to really be open to yourself when reading this. There will be moments, that you say to yourself, I'm not like that. It's the other people who are like that, not me. But no, you and I, and most of us suit exactly to these statements presented in this book. That is exactly the point, most of us think that they are smarter than most of us. So wanted or not, this book is about you. How you are tricked and affected by the things you don't believe that affects you. You think you are smart and on top of your thoughts and actions, but you are not. You are more fragile than you think.

I do now, that studied from science is not the absolute truth. Those keep on evolving all the time. So I've read it with some precautions in mind. Still there's so much good proof for many these cases that I do believe in those. Keep open, but careful mind when reading this.

It's hard to say to whom this would be for. I would like to say for all, but I know some are not even smart enough to want to read this. So I hope anyone who are willing to know more about human behavior would read this. It is one of the best books I've ever read.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Digital identity, many views to single person. Is it about to change?

I noticed that Jeff Jarvis had blogged about identity (One identity or more) bit before I blogged about social media making people specialists. It's bit lame to say, but that post from Jeff is exactly the things I have been thinking and also I tried to come across on my post. Jeff is talking about inner self and outer self as the ones that you know you are and what you want people to see you as. I don't believe anyone can argue that there are different side of ourselves depending in a context.  Is social media now changing this?

Facebook comments is an example where your different outer selves would start to mix. If you start to you extensively FB comments on everything you comment about, you start to reveal much wider picture of yourself and your interests than you would only using FB like and status updates. For example most of my FB friends don't know (and or don't really care) about my blogging and also about the issues I follow and which I comment to. If I would start using FB comments it would mix my FB me with blogging me or twitter me.

There's nothing secret in these different sides of me, but those are mainly my own interpretation of the people I interact with in those media's. So I tend to think most of the FB friends don't really care about my interests towards high tech or innovations or having conversations like this one. And on the other hand I tend to think that readers of this blog don't care about huge amounts of sports I follow, so I don't blog about those here. That's the reason I've decided to have so many different ways to interact with me in the web.

Now I think this might slowly start to change. People will start to use more and more the same point of view (outer self) to all things they are interested. So with one look you would be able to see all from humiliating photos to the specialized interests and knowledge of a one person. This will make all of us more human, but it also will make it harder to find information based on source. There is a need to have still much better ways to get specialized updates based on subjects and not only by sources

I would be really happy if one day I could have all of my friends, coworkers and those who want to follow me for specific reasons under one tool. I could use the same tool to share and write about kids, sports, exercising, high tech, humorous, photography, UX and everything else that interests me. Currently I'm still too afraid that most of these subjects wouldn't suit most of you in this media, so I've decided to use different tools for different subjects.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Will increasing use of social media guide us for healthier self-image?

This Ted talk about Social media and the end of gender got me thinking more widely about social medias affect on desired body-image. Increasing use of social media might help us to move slowly from admiring of always perfectly looking, well shaped and well trained body image to healthier view of a person.

Time spent on internet and social media is increasing and cutting time from old TV and magazine media. This old media is doing everything they can to make people look perfect. Meaning that people wouldn't have any flaws. Models in these picture and videos have perfect skin, hair, body and they are always dressed to coolest clothes. On the other hand social media also reveals true persons. Most of people have photos of themselves visible somewhere in the web. At least in their profile pictures, but increasingly in videos and pictures of real life situations.

People do want to look good and cool in pictures and videos, but most of the pictures and videos in social media are not photo-shopped and taken by professionals. Those photos reveal the real people. I think this will slowly turn the heads of all to realize that everyone has flaws and don't always look perfect.

Media houses and admiring the models and actors in TV, movies and magazines will not suddenly disappear. Social media is lot about sharing and big part of content shared is still produced professionally. Fan culture will always be there and there will always professional models and photographers. Maybe media will still start to turn for more to realistic and amateurish looks with models and content just because of those which are done by amateurs are getting more and more popular. Already now, in some cases it's hard to tell from some of the videos or photos that are those made professionally to look like an amateur or are those really amateur ones.

Even though problems accepting your self-image are often considered as problems of young and teenagers, I believe that most of people have some problems with it. Think about constant diet, gym and other seasons, when there's lot of people trying to do some good about themselves. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but the driver for healthier body, shouldn't come from outer pressure, but from internal drive to feel better. That's the only way to make it last.

Maybe it's just me dreaming, because of two small daughters at home. But I genuinely hope that my daughters would live in a world where not only the slimmest and model looking people would get admired.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen