We've long heard that when it comes to sharing pictures online, people opt for glossy-looking aesthetics and carefully staged scenarios to show off the good side of life. But in reality, the internet is a hilariously bizarre place. The 'Some Images' Facebook page is here to burst your bubble and showcase some of the most out-of-context photos that make the online world seem like one big chaotic mess. A tilted soccer field? Check. A rock that resembles an Xbox controller? Yup. An escalator that turns out to be just a regular flight of stairs? You guessed it. It has plenty of content to make people at least somewhat confused and a lot entertained.
The creator of this page has set out on a mission to collect the most ridiculous images of people and animals floating around, and from the looks of it, they’re doing just fine. These pics are the perfect attention trap because once your eyes land on them, it’s difficult to turn your gaze away.
As you scroll through this list, you’ll notice how vividly it illustrates the weird side of humanity and how open to interpretation these photos are. Things that are hard to categorize can throw us off our game, making us put our focus on solving these perplexing puzzles. After all, many of us feel a desire to understand what’s right in front of us, and if we can’t pinpoint what we’re looking at, we start feeling uneasy and confused.
According to psychological scientist Jason M. Lodge and professor of higher education Gregor Kennedy, confusion is usually experienced when we stumble across new information. Especially when this novel knowledge is complex, counter-intuitive, or unlike anything we’ve encountered before. While it’s hard to argue that feeling perplexed is at least slightly annoying, it can be useful (and sometimes even necessary!) when we want to learn something new. You see, confusion is included in the epistemic emotions. In other words, it’s an emotion that’s specifically associated with the development of our knowledge and understanding.
The authors stated that there are two types of confusion: productive and unproductive. "When people are trying to learn something new, confusion is often seen as a negative, something to be avoided," they wrote. "Few of us would readily think that a positive learning experience was associated with the state of confusion. The most obvious reason for this is that confusion, when it persists, can very easily escalate to frustration or boredom." People should try to avoid getting themselves into these situations, as they are only a short step away from disengagement and giving up on the subject.
The key to making our bewilderment serve us well is to recognize it and ensure it wouldn’t persist for too long. So firstly, we have to acknowledge that we’re feeling confused. "Most participants in our studies have been reluctant to admit to experiencing confusion. It is only revealed later through in-depth interviews," the researchers noted. "This is not surprising as there is a negative stigma attached to confusion. It is often unfairly thought of as a sign of stupidity or a lack of intelligence." If you want to harness this emotion when you’re facing challenges with new concepts and ideas, recognize that it exists. "Be comfortable with this, but seek to resolve it."
These days, however, complex theories are often being presented in an easy, engaging, and entertaining way to appeal to the masses. Videos in the media and online can quickly explain difficult ideas with easy-to-understand narration and fluent animations. "It can be easy to find information about highly complex phenomena, such as climate change or vaccination, that seems easy to understand and aligns well with our intuitive conceptions (or misconceptions!)," the authors stated. "The internet has made it easy to find highly engaging and appealing explanations of phenomena that are very good at cutting down the complexity to make these concepts understandable."
But if we want to fully grasp the benefits of confusion, we need to understand two lessons, they argued. "First, being confused about complex concepts and phenomena can mean we are investing enough mental effort into trying to understand. Not finding novel, complex ideas confusing at first can be a sign of overconfidence which has been reliably shown to be detrimental to learning."
Second, people should accept that struggle and bewilderment are important parts of the learning process. "When encountering new, complex ideas, it is useful to find them challenging and confusing, so long as the confusion does not persist too long," Lodge and Kennedy wrote. "The struggle associated with overcoming confusion helps us to find better strategies for understanding the world."
