It’s always a great feeling to have optimism for various things. Of course, it depends on the things people want to be optimistic about. For me, I’m confident about my future — it looks bright from my perspective as long as I keep putting in the effort, which, in my opinion, I’ve been doing a good job of and staying on the right track in everything. However, there is a distinction between being cruelly optimistic and being authentically optimistic, especially in today’s society, given the prevalence of technology and media used daily. 

Cruel and Authentic Optimism Involving Technology

As I continue to read “Stolen Focus” by Johann Hari, it really caught my eye when the cruel optimism theory was mentioned in Chapter 8. Hari describes cruel optimism as situations in which people attempt to resolve the attention crisis, but their efforts are underestimated due to the structure of the environment. In other words, people should identify the root causes of their lack of attention and not take the easy way out when it comes to solutions.  In this case, cause roots can be attributed to the reasons why everyone uses technology in the way they do in today’s society. I know that, in my case, a lot of my technology usage stems from my interest in entertainment and staying in touch with friends and family on social media. I think I’m now aware of why I use technology after my YouTube detox last week. 

On the other hand, if people want to understand the root causes of their technology usage, they should be authentically optimistic — something Hari mentions in Chapter 9 of the book. This version of optimism centers on deeper solutions, hence Chapter 9’s title, “Cause 8: The First Glimpses of Deeper Solution.” Hari mentions a few concepts related to deeper solutions regarding this topic, such as banning surveillance capitalism, alternative business models, challenges, and realism. I honestly think banning surveillance capitalism could work, in which there is no need to manipulate people’s attention because they’re human beings. They can technically control themselves and how they want to handle situations like this. Perhaps certain individuals could limit their exposure to specific content, assuming that surveillance still exists in today’s society. Additionally, I understand where Hari is coming from when he discusses alternative business models and mentions the various structures associated with them, such as subscription and utility models. These versions of business models could yield positive results in terms of behavior manipulation. They would all need to take effect soon. 

The Cruel and Authentic Optimism Process

So, when you really think about the concepts of cruel and authentic optimism in this context, the cruel side comes into play first, and then that’s when you start being authentic with it. In today’s society, there’s a vast amount of technology and media being used by everyone nonstop, and in some cases, people get manipulated, which can cause significant negativity in their lives. It just takes lots of critical thinking and knowledge about how to be authentically optimistic immediately after being on the cruel side.