Monday, March 07, 2022

Your Brain is Like an Algorithm

Once upon a time, there was a a site that if you told it things you like, would recommend other things to you. And it was wonderful. Some of the things it recommended I had already tried, so I spent time giving it more data. And it was great. Until eventually, it had so much data about me, it was no good. To me the recommendations seemed entirely off, or just plain terrible. Eventually it seemed to try to self correct, filtering down to only the last three things I like and working from there.
I read about a study once that said people who have just met people are better at picking gifts for folks than people who have known each other for years.
Being an informed aware person is a good thing. But your brain can only process so much data before the algorithm goes a bit haywire. Sometimes you need to take a break, let the well refill, let the data churn a bit before you add more. It can be easy to go all on or go all out. Learning to float a bit is a skill. And you can't float all the time, so sometimes you will have to switch.
But letting it process a bit isn't lazy, it's smart.