Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

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

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zydecovivo's review against another edition

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informative reflective fast-paced

4.25

I saw this book in the Fable April newsletter. I should’ve read the summary a bit more or looked into the author because it was not as I expected based on the title. I thought the book was going to be on how to address overthinking and thought spirals caused by anxiety. The book focuses more on so-called “magical thinking”, the belief that unrelated events are causally connected, particularly as a result of supernatural effects, especially in the context of obsession and social media. I probably would’ve understood this if I’d seen that the author had also written a book and done podcasts on cults. Montell looks at society and the deterioration of relationships between people in our modern age from both an outside and inside perspective. I appreciate her personal anecdotes and the way she explains her experiences, their causes, and her own thoughts and reflections. Most of the psychological/buzzword terms, such as sunk-cost fallacy, survivorship bias, and the recency illusion, I have heard of and already understood from psych101, but this may be a good introductory book for anyone not as familiar or who needs more modern examples. I admit the book didn’t exactly pull me in and keep my attention (I was listening on audiobook), but I think it was due to my prior knowledge and/or general headspace while listening. I probably shouldn’t have listened to a book about how we’re all being manipulated to buy things and hate each other during work. Overall, still a good book and thought-provoking. May come back to it because I don’t think I got everything out of it that I could have. 
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