In our modern world, we are all surrounded by much information. A good way to be unhappy is to look only at information that agrees with your opinions and ignore anything that might change them. This can cause one to be unhappy because one’s opinions can be wrong, and truths never challenge them. Psychologists have named this way of thinking, where one’s mind ignores information that doesn’t agree with it, “confirmation bias.”
Here is a short example of how confirmation bias can cause unhappiness.
Sarah believes that cigarette smoking is not harmful to one’s health. A friend tells her that she is wrong, so Sarah decides to check things by doing a search on the internet about the health risks of smoking.
The first four web search results have topics that suggest that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. The fifth search result, however, seems to indicate that cigarette smoking is harmless and that the dangers of smoking are a conspiracy theory.
Sarah ignored the first four results, as they disagreed with her current opinion that cigarette smoking is healthy. Instead, she clicked only the fifth result, which agreed with her current opinion. This led her to wrongly conclude that cigarette smoking is healthy.
So, if you want to be unhappy, ignore any information that does not agree with your current opinion.