Does ignorance have an upside?

It’s a cliche of modern tourism that no matter which hotel or B&B you plan to stay at, someone will have described it on TripAdvisor as the worst they’ve ever visited, from which they’re still suffering post-traumatic stress. This is also why you shouldn’t use Google to diagnose that pain in your abdomen: some site will convince you it’s a fatal flesh-eating disease. Or perhaps, like me in recent weeks, you have found yourself loitering on parenting websites, trying to discover whether letting your baby cry himself to sleep would be unconscionably cruel and all but guarantee a disastrous adulthood.

Except, once again, it’s not really a matter of “whether”. Now that the barrier to broadcasting your opinion is so low, you’re certain to find an apparently authoritative person expressing precisely that view, along with its opposite, and everything in between. (Incidentally, I think I’ve figured out the official standard for describing yourself as a “baby sleep expert” online: you need to be able to switch on a computer and start a blog.)

This situation – in which you know you’ll find alarming information, if you go looking – adds an interesting twist to a phenomenon psychologists have described for years as “deliberate ignorance”. Deliberate ignorance helps explain why people don’t go to the doctor or check their bank balance, even though they’d be better off long-term; in the short-term, it’s more comfortable to stay in the dark. It’s also why people avoid news sources that challenge their most cherished positions. “We want to think of ourselves as healthy and smart, people who make good decisions,” one researcher told the Wall Street Journal recently. At root, it’s all about wanting the feeling of control. In studies, when you actively remind people of all the control they have over their lives, they’re far more willing to risk discovering unsettling information.

The difference, these days, is that in many contexts unsettling information isn’t just possible, it’s guaranteed. Online, if you seek evidence that your travel plans are stupid, your ailment serious or your parenting indistinguishable from child abuse, you’ll definitely succeed. This cacophony of clashing, often factually dubious viewpoints is usually held to be a bad thing, and in many ways it is. But there’s a strange silver lining: once you’re certain that your viewpoints aren’t unassailable, rather than simply afraid this might be the case, it becomes easier to trust your instincts. You stop yearning so much for the endorsement of some external authority, because you know there’s someone endorsing every viewpoint under the sun. So you stop panicking about the pain, and either go to the doctor, or don’t. You let your gut tell you if the baby’s in distress, or just mithering. You stop fretting that not everyone loved the hotel you’ve chosen.

Indeed, this liberating effect applies in any situation where you’re afraid of what the rest of the world might think about your choices. You can stop worrying that other people might be judging you harshly, because I promise you: they definitely are.

oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com