think before you nod: staying curious in the age of endless headlines

I’ve caught myself nodding at my phone more times than I’d like to admit this year.

It usually happens mid-scroll. An article headline flashes by: smartly written, confidently framed, published by a name I recognize. I pause. I read. It makes sense. I nod. Maybe I save it. Maybe I repost it. Then I keep scrolling.

The next day, I stumble onto another piece. Same topic. Same authority. Completely opposite conclusion. And somehow, I nod again.

That’s when it started to bother me, not because the opinions conflicted, but because I didn’t. I hadn’t stopped to ask why both felt equally convincing. I hadn’t noticed how quickly agreement had become muscle memory.

We like to say we’re overwhelmed by information, but I think the real problem is subtler than that. It’s not that there’s too much to read, it’s that reading has quietly turned into consuming. Scroll. Absorb. Agree. Move on.

At some point, we stopped reading to understand and started reading to validate whatever mood or belief we happened to be in that day.

I notice this most with articles that begin with “Study says…”

Those three words carry so much weight. They signal credibility. They tell us, You don’t need to think too hard about this, someone else already did. And we fall for it every time. Coffee is good for you. No, wait—it’s bad. Eight hours of sleep is ideal. Actually, seven. Or maybe six if you’re productive enough. Every week, a new conclusion replaces the old one, and I obediently adjust my nod accordingly.

The uncomfortable truth? I rarely remember these articles the next day. What I remember is the feeling of having read something smart. For a while, I mistook that feeling for learning.

But learning, I realized, is heavier. It lingers. It forces you to sit with discomfort, to wrestle with contradictions, to ask annoying follow-up questions like why does this matter to me? or what assumptions are baked into this claim? I wasn’t doing that. I was collecting scraps of information and mistaking them for understanding.

The gap wasn’t intelligence. It was curiosity.

This isn’t a narrative to reject media or distrust everything we read. It’s a reminder to resist passivity. To remember that truth isn’t something we inherit just because it was written well or published loudly. Thinking takes effort. Curiosity takes time. Forming your own conclusion, one you can stand behind, takes courage.

So this is a quiet note to myself as much as anyone else: pause before you nod. Let an idea sit longer than a scroll. Ask one more question than feels necessary. Tug at the thread instead of accepting the weave.

And since this space is where I put my own thoughts into the world, I want to say this plainly: I don’t want blind agreement here either. Don’t just nod at what I write. Challenge it. Build on it. Push it further than I did. If it sharpens, let it cut. If it stretches, let it grow.

That’s how we stay awake in a world that constantly invites us to switch our brains to autopilot, not by agreeing faster, but by thinking deeper.