We Have the Wrong Access to Data
My mother is insane. She does this thing where she opens any streaming platform of her choice, and picks a movie to watch blindly. No Googling, no reading reviews, no asking others for their opinions. More often than not, she seems to enjoy herself thoroughly.
With reading, I have found myself to face the opposite problem. I find it difficult to pick up a book before looking up the Goodreads rating or checking with friends if they've read and liked the book. A part of me misses the lack of information I had as a child reader, where choosing a book was purely on the basis of how interesting the title sounded or how cool the cover looked.
Part of my childhood bookshelf
When did listening to music get competitive? A few weeks ago as we friends pored over the differences in our Spotify stats, I almost felt bad for having fewer minutes listened than some of my friends. Sure, it's a really cool feature to know how much music I have listened to, and who my top artists were, but do I really need to have an option to partake in a very humbling "wrapped battle" with friends who put my numbers to shame (and surely thought how uncool I was).
And you might say, but Gaurang, you can choose not to look at the rating of a movie before you see it, or decide not to have a stats battle with your friends. But can I really? When my friends come over to watch a movie, in this day and age of excessive information, how am I supposed to convince everyone that we will now proceed to pick a movie purely on the basis of vibes?
Of course, I understand this same data now has given me access to the highest rated movies, shows and books, but I do miss the excitement of stumbling upon a good find myself and being able to form my own unbiased opinion of it. I do often wonder if I fall prey to liking something only because I am supposed to like it. I have gone back and checked the ratings of some of the books I held highly as a child, only to find that the average reader does not rate them as highly as I do. How much art that I would like am I not accessing because I am falling to the opinion of the average?
Friends, next time there is a movie night at my house, we will be picking a movie purely on the basis of the title and how awesome the thumbnail looks.