I tried 'critical ignoring' for a week — 4 rules for an AI-flooded internet

The other day while doomscrolling, I noticed something I hadn’t clocked before: the internet felt boring. And yet, somehow, it also felt exhausting. My brain was unstimulated while being overstimulated. And I don’t think it’s just social media anymore.

It’s the whole internet.

Search results are packed with AI summaries. Every app has a chatbot. Every platform wants you to engage, react and stay one click longer. Even when you’re trying to be productive, the internet keeps nudging for your attention. ChatGPT is part of that shift too. More and more people are treating AI like a starting point for everything, not just a tool to use occasionally.

Which means we’re now living in a place where information shows up instantly, but it’s also mixed in with half-truths, AI deepfakes and content that’s designed to keep us clicking. Now that ChatGPT is getting ads, I’m done trying to sift through everything and think harder about every single thing I see online.

Instead, I'm trying something new: critical ignoring.

The concept comes from media literacy research, and it’s been a popular response to AI-driven information overload. It was even mentioned in the WSJ recently.

The internet is engineered to punish critical thinking

For a long time, I thought the solution to internet chaos was better critical thinking. I thought that by considering every angle and researching everything was the best way to keep up. And while that approach makes sense in theory and is responsible, it's not practical, nor is it the way the internet 'works.'

You see, I've realized something uncomfortable: critical thinking has quietly become a liability on the modern internet. Don't get me wrong, crticial thinking isn't bad. But the internet is engineered to punish it. The way the internet works now is designed to:

• reward engagement, not accuracy
• pull you into endless context
• provoke emotional reactions
• blur the line between fact, opinion and speculation
• make “plausible” feel like “true”

If you’ve ever clicked one link to “quickly check something,” then looked up 25 minutes later wondering what just happened, you already know what I mean.

And AI didn’t create that system. It just made it faster. ChatGPT didn’t make me less smart, it made me more tired. Honestly, ChatGPT is one of the most useful tools I’ve ever used. It helps me brainstorm, summarize, plan, rewrite, compare options and get unstuck when my brain feels like it’s spiraling.

But it also introduced a new temptation: the feeling that I can get a clean answer to everything, instantly. And that’s where things get tricky.

Because ChatGPT is so fluent, so confident, so fast, it can make “done” feel like “true.” It can make “sounds right” feel like “verified.” Even when it’s not.

The rise of “true enough”

The rise of AI isn’t a reason to panic. It’s a reason to adjust how we engage with information now. Because when AI becomes part of your daily workflow, your attention becomes the real cost.

Large language models aren’t built to verify truth. You have to do that yourself. And the internet has trained us to rely on shortcuts like fluency, confidence and social endorsement. So if something sounds reasonable, we stop checking.

That’s when critical thinking fails, not because we’re careless, but because nothing feels suspicious enough to trigger deeper verification. It feels complete. Neutral. Helpful. Which is exactly why it spreads.

My breaking point wasn’t misinformation, it was mental load

Here’s the part that not a lot of people get, everything we see online is asking something from us. Every post wants a reaction. Every thread wants an opinion. Every debate wants you to weigh in. Every “quick search” has turned into a mini research project. And soon, every ChatGPT response will be a reason to buy something.

Even when the content seems harmless, the experience can be mentally expensive. After 20 minutes of “just checking” social media, I’d feel more scattered, less motivated and less able to focus on anything meaningful. That’s where critical ignoring comes in.

How to practice 'critical ignoring'

Critical ignoring doesn’t mean believing nothing. It means choosing not to engage deeply with low-value information. Instead of asking, “Is this true?” you ask: Is this worth my attention at all?

That one reframing changed everything for me. Because the internet is full of content that isn’t technically false. It’s just not worth your time. And in the age of AI, that’s the difference between staying informed and staying overwhelmed.

The 4 rules I've put into practice after a week

To see if critical ignoring actually worked, I gave myself four simple rules.

• Rule #1: If it triggers emotion first, I pause. If my first reaction is anger, panic, smugness or “wait, WHAT?” I don’t engage. No replies. No doom-scrolling.
• Rule #2: I don’t fact-check inside the content. Comments aren’t verification. Threads aren’t sources. If it matters, I leave the platform and check elsewhere.
• Rule #3: I treat AI answers like drafts, not sources. ChatGPT is great for summaries, brainstorming and clarity, but it’s not final authority. I treat AI output like a first draft: useful, fast and not automatically true.
• Rule #4: I ask one question before engaging. Would I care about this tomorrow? If not, I move on.

The habit that helped most: stop going deeper, go wider. The biggest mistake I used to make was fact-checking inside the content. I read the thread, scanned the comments, followed the argument. That’s exactly what the internet wants.

Instead, I switched to lateral reading. When I see a claim now, I open a new tab, do a quick search, check multiple credible sources, and look at who’s making the claim and why.

It takes under a minute, and it works way better than reading 400 replies or trusting one AI-generated summary.

The takeaway

After a week of practicing “critical ignoring,” I feel less manipulated.

I scroll less without trying. I’ve stopped getting angry at strangers because I’m not getting pulled into fake debates. In an environment begging for a reaction, I shrug. Most importantly, I feel mentally lighter, like I’ve stopped carrying around unnecessary urgency.

And I realized something else: I don’t want ChatGPT to feel like a feed. I want it to remain a tool. Critical ignoring helped me keep it that way, and I’m not going back. Because AI is embedded into everything now, that means the volume of convincing information is only going to increase.

You can’t analyze and verify it all. So the most important skill isn’t better thinking. It’s better filtering. I’m not trying to outthink the internet anymore. I’m trying to out-ignore it.

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