Why our brain hands out thumbs‑up all day long

You wake up in the morning, pick up your phone and scroll mindlessly through a few posts. One feels nice, inspiring or funny. Another triggers slight irritation. Before you realise it, you’ve already stuck a series of invisible labels on them. And unfortunately, that doesn’t stop there, because this doesn’t only happen online. Offline, too, our subconscious is constantly applying labels. That colleague who says something in a meeting. The tone of an email. The way someone looks at you. As if the world is being sorted into two simple boxes: YES or NO. Like or dislike. This is, in fact, one of the most basic survival strategies of our subconscious mind. And that is also where the doorway to more inner space and tolerance lies.

Our subconscious is not concerned with nuance, but with one thing: safety. From an evolutionary perspective, this need for overview makes perfect sense. If you can quickly assess whether something is dangerous or safe, your chances of survival increase. Doubt takes time. Time can be dangerous when you are facing a tiger. This is why the subconscious works with rapid conclusions, based on earlier experiences. It is constantly checking: have I encountered this before? And if so: how did it turn out?

• If it went well → this feels “pleasant”.
• If it went badly → this feels “painful”.

And so, unconsciously, an inner measuring scale emerges: the familiar “line from pain to pleasure”. Everything we experience is very quickly placed somewhere along that line.

Our subconscious mainly remembers how something felt, not why it felt that way or in what context, and therefore forms judgements at great speed. They seem logical, but at their core they are automatic reflexes. In cognitive psychology (most famously described in the Dual‑Process Theory by the world‑renowned psychologist Daniel Kahneman), this is explained as the difference between two thinking systems. System 1 is fast, automatic and emotional. It constantly scans the environment and draws rapid conclusions: pleasant or unpleasant, safe or unsafe. System 2 is slower and more deliberate. It is capable of reflection, nuance and holding multiple perspectives at the same time.

The issue is not that System 1 exists, because in situations of real danger, it is essential for survival. The problem is that we often fail to notice when it has fully taken over the steering wheel, even when that is no longer necessary. Especially in environments that invite speed, such as social media, System 2 hardly gets the opportunity to engage.

It is therefore no coincidence that social media fits this mechanism so perfectly. Everything there revolves around rapid evaluation: interesting or scroll on. Like or no like. Social media essentially does exactly what our subconscious does, but in a visible form. It pulls the inner labels to the surface and makes them measurable.

And this works in two directions. On the one hand, we receive a dopamine hit from handing them out. We get to judge. We choose. We give a thumbs‑up or not. That creates a sense of control and overview. On the other hand, we also want to receive them. Likes are an external signal that we are apparently doing “well”, positioned on the pleasant side of the line. That our behaviour, our opinion, our very existence feels sufficiently safe to the group.
No wonder it is so addictive. The fact that we rationally know this by now does not help all that much, because this process largely takes place below the rational level.

A judgement therefore feels like clarity, but it quickly places a full stop where there was actually more space to explore. And when you begin to observe your own judging process, it often reveals interesting information. Why does my system find this tense? Which experience is being recalled here? What is this judgement trying to protect me from? These questions can only arise when we do not immediately treat the judgement as truth.

So the point is not that we should stop judging. That would be impossible.

The subconscious simply does what it does, because System 1 is a survival system. What matters is becoming aware that you are doing it. In the exercises of the Clarity Process, we therefore do not work on replacing “negative” judgements with “positive” ones. Instead, we explore the movement itself: the moment something in your system is shifted towards pain or pleasure. That is where freedom lies. Not by boycotting social media. Not by forcing yourself to be milder. But by becoming curious about what your system is trying to regulate. Perhaps it wants to belong. Perhaps it wants to feel in control.

See if you can try the following once today (or tomorrow). At a moment when you notice that something automatically receives a like or dislike – a post, a remark, or even a thought about yourself – do the following:

1. Pause for a single moment.
   Not to change what you think, but simply to notice that there is a judgement.
   
2. Quietly name it inwardly:
   “Aha, my system is placing a label here.”
   That is enough.
   
3. Briefly feel into your body:
   • Is there tension?
   • Or perhaps relaxation?
   No analysis, just noticing.
   
4. Let the label be there.
   You do not need to push it away, soften it, or understand it.
   Just notice: this is happening now.

That is all.

The exercise is not about changing your judgement, but about separating you from the judgement. You are not the label; you are the one observing it. Many people notice that, in that moment, a small amount of extra space naturally appears. Not because the line from pain to pleasure disappears, but because you are no longer being completely carried along by it. And that brings more calm and ease into everyday life.