One of the hard parts about sharing one's opinions online like I do is that it's very easy to fall into the trap of mostly complaining about things. Do you like tech? Careful, lest you post mostly about what tech you hate. Do you like movies and TV? It will be very tempting to latch onto something you don't like and roast it far more than you celebrate the shows and films you love. Are you into politics? Again, it's very tempting to complain about all the things going wrong without advocating for the things and people that you think can make a difference. I'm certainly not perfect at getting this ratio just right, but I do try to keep these things in mind as much as I can.

It's hard not to point the finger at infinite feeds on social media as being part of the problem here. It's not even that the companies behind them are evil, it's that they've created a tool that our human brains simply seem to react to in very specific ways. Forget about the algorithms for a second, and just place two posts next to each other: one with a savage takedown of something you don't like and one with a nice post about something you do like. Time and time again, it seems that we are more inclined to reward the savage takedown with a favorite or a boost than then one with someone sharing the thing they like.

Not that it's only a problem on social media feeds, this expands to places like YouTube as well. That 4-hours takedown of the Star Wars hotel was really compelling, but it never would have gained as much attention if it was a 4-hour look at why that experience was pretty cool.

It's a challenge on traditional blogs, even! We're free from all the algorithmic concerns of social media, but we still easily fall into patterns of writing about things we don't like. At the time of writing, 7 of the last 15 posts on this site have been about things I think are bad, and 8 were about good things. That's pretty decent, but it's not a ratio that's always been spot-on for me, and it's something I'm trying to keep in mind.

Ultimately, I love tech and movies and games and people and I never want to get to a place with my output online where you feel like you know more about what I don't like than what I do. I'll continue doing my best over here.