You Are Not So Smart

Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

By: David McRaney

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise.

You believe you are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is, but journalist David McRaney is here to tell you that you're as deluded as the rest of us. But that's OK - delusions keep us sane. You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of self-delusion. It's like a psychology class, with all the boring parts taken out, and with no homework.Based on the popular blog of the same name, You Are Not So Smart collects more than 46 of the lies we tell ourselves everyday, including:

• Dunbar's Number - Humans evolved to live in bands of roughly 150 individuals, the brain cannot handle more than that number. If you have more than 150 Facebook friends, they are surely not all real friends.
• Hindsight bias - When we learn something new, we reassure ourselves that we knew it all along.
• Confirmation bias - Our brains resist new ideas, instead paying attention only to findings that reinforce our preconceived notions.
• Brand loyalty - We reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it.

©2011 David McRaney (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"In an Idiocracy dominated by cable TV bobbleheads, government propagandists, and corporate spinmeisters, many of us know that mass ignorance is a huge problem. Now, thanks to David McRaney's mind-blowing book, we can finally see the scientific roots of that problem. Anybody still self-aware enough to wonder why society now worships willful stupidity should read this book." ( David Sirota, author of Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now)

Great. Will definitely listen again

Examples of biases and experiments range from hilariously silly to profoundly serious, but all are very enlightening.

Information was interesting, performance could have been better

At times the information gave you a different perspective on what you know/think you know. But the way it was presented seemed very matter a fact.

Overall decent/could have been better.

Brief, but interesting

Many of the experiments that the book goes through are very popular experiments, so if psychology is something you are familiar with there is a high chance you know most of of these already. They are also quite brief. I would suggest this as the perfect beginner book into studying this field.

An explanation into why we live an illusion

The book is divided into 48 chapters which give a small example of how our view on life is distorted. I really liked the concepts in the book and my only criticism would be that some topics are intertwined yet are many chapters apart. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone that thinks his view on life is infallible.

Absolute Best Book Ever

Great book that exposes all the flaws in our thinking that we don't believe are there.

A fun and interesting read

The book is well researched and fun to read, as it exposes a lot of mental shortcuts you may not be aware of. Even the slightly more complex ideas are well presented and explained with simple words. Recommended!

Loved this book!

One of only a handful of books I’ve listened to multiple times. In very concise and succinct chapters the author challenges you to examine your belief system or, more importantly, how you developed them. Perfect narration for the subject matter.

One of the books I am most happy with.

Where does You Are Not So Smart rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Excellent. Somewhere way at the top. Don Hagen sounds like he reads the whole book with a smirk on his face and I found the information most valuable since I had little to no knowledge of many of the topics.

Have you listened to any of Don Hagen’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, not yet, but I would want to.

If you could give You Are Not So Smart a new subtitle, what would it be?

Knowledge of some of these topics might actually save your life.

Any additional comments?

I think someone who has a more formal education in social sciences might not enjoy it as much. But since I am just an interested layman, I really found it useful.

Great review of psychological fallacies & biases

The book is a review of quite a few psychological fallacies, biases, and myths. It does a good job of poking holes in a lot of our mistaken beliefs about how our brains work, and explaining the science of how researchers have determined these beliefs aren't correct. As such, it's worthwhile for just about anyone to listen to.

However, I have two criticisms. The first is that there is a lot of information presented and studies described, and in some cases diagrams or other visual things discussed, all of which would benefit greatly from a PDF with examples and references, but unfortunately, this Audible book doesn't include one. There isn't one that I've been able to find on the author's website either.

The second criticism is that the book comes across as rather obnoxious at times. The narrator does a fine job, but it still ends up being a bit annoying at times. What's also odd is that the author has a podcast that this book grew out of, so I really wonder why he didn't narrate the book. I believe it would've benefited from him narrating the book by being a bit less obnoxious.

Overall though, recommended, possibly supplemented by purchasing a copy of the book (which I haven't yet done, but likely will).

Wonderful read

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This was a fantastic read, the narrator was great, and the book was well written. The laid back, informal tone of the book made complex psychology concepts easy to digest and understand. Great book all around.