I often find myself feeling detached from reality when I’m surrounded by superficial conversations. It’s not just boredom or a lack of interest. I experience a genuine mental disconnection, as if my brain refuses to process information it perceives as empty. This disengagement isn’t about feeling superior, it’s about feeling disconnected. When discussions lack critical thinking, logic, or even minimal reflection, they feel less like conversations and more like noise.

This effect doesn’t happen only on small talk. Even discussions that should be interesting, such as tech, philosophy, or culture, can become hollow when they’re reduced to slogans, blind allegiance, or knee-jerk reactions.

I believe there’s a profound difference between not knowing something and not caring to know. In today’s society, people seem to settle too quickly, satisfied with surface-level knowledge. The habit of questioning, doubting, and pushing deeper is disappearing.

I think this is symptomatic of an active disengagement from critical thought. When faced with new information, too many people reject it outright rather than interrogating it. They don’t ask: “Is what I’m hearing or reading true?” “What’s the reasoning behind it?” “Could my previous assumption be wrong?” Instead, many people have a visceral, emotional, defensive, and ultimately dismissing reaction, shutting down the possibility of learning (or even teaching).

This isn’t just about online debates, it’s about a cultural shift. To this day, I have low expectations for people to engage meaningfully with bigger, more complex issues. Many areas of our lives, such as politics, technology, and ethics, aren’t black and white. However, when people treat conversations as battles, meaningful discourse dies.

The answer to the previous three questions is skepticism, curiosity, and humility.

Part of the problem is that we’ve built environments that reward certainty over curiosity. Social media algorithms feed us content that confirms what we already believe, news sources cater to specific ideological perspectives, and even our friend groups often form around shared beliefs. When everyone around you agrees with you, you begin to mistake opinion for fact and preference for truth.