Even though 'The Darker Side Of Science' group over on Facebook has only recently celebrated its first birthday, it has gained a strong foothold on the platform. More than 424k members swiftly share or eagerly wait for new shocking and humorous posts to grace their feeds. But the whopping number of people fascinated with bizarre scientific practices begs the question, why are we so engaged with uncanny things in life? Dr. Jesse Matthews, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Chester Springs, PA, explained that we humans are simply drawn to the dark and mysterious.
"We find human nature to be fascinating, particularly things we don’t understand like organized crime, cults, or conspiracies. And of course, this applies to things other than humans, like Bigfoot, aliens, ghosts, demon possession, or the Bermuda Triangle," he told Bored Panda.
The psychologist pointed out that anything that's challenging for us to understand seems to capture our interest. "This certainly explains the popularity of the true crime genre of TV, books, podcasts, and movies. This is a great outlet for many people to look at the darker side of life or to think about things we don’t easily understand," he added.
One reason we pay attention to the abnormal and seek to understand mysterious things is that we are hardwired to observe and try to make sense of our surroundings, Dr. Matthews said. "This is certainly true in our environment, as it is important to take notice of potential threats, even though survival isn’t something most people need to be concerned about."
"This explains anxiety, though, which relates to us worrying about potential threats or perceiving things as threatening that may not be," he continued. "Not everyone has an issue with anxiety, of course, but we all pay attention to our surroundings and make some effort to make sense of them. This may also apply to things we find to be mysterious, as we have an innate desire to want to understand." Dr. Matthews added that when it comes to rarer or less common things in life, our interest could jump to a whole new level.
Of course, life isn’t only black and white. What may seem dark and dangerous to one person could be totally captivating to another. We were curious to learn more about our tendency to label things to certain categories and see them as binary opposites. "It is 100% true that we should try not to see life in a simple, binary fashion," Dr. Matthews told us. "I would argue that seeing things this way is a large part of many of our problems today."
The psychologist stressed that life is full of gray areas, and we oversimplify things by seeing them as black and white. "Whether we’re talking about people, places, situations, or even ourselves, seeing the positives and the negatives helps us to see the fuller picture and gives us a better perspective than making quick and likely unfair judgments. Failing to see the gray in ourselves and our own lives is problematic and can lead to issues like perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, anxiety, or depression. In fact, helping people to think in less black and white terms is probably one of the main things I do as a therapist," he revealed.
"Seeing the gray areas can be helpful as well for helping us to deal with life," Dr. Matthews said. "This allows us to see the bigger picture and to have more information to go off of when making decisions, but can also help us to have a healthier perspective."
As an example, he mentioned that being able to see good things in difficult situations, as well as finding humor in the face of unfortunate problems can help us cope. "It’s also healthy and positive to be able to laugh at ourselves. It helps us to accept ourselves as imperfect and to take ourselves less seriously."
The Facebook group in question is a perfect example of just how brightly light can shine in the darkness. The members of this community share opinions and participate in discussions about crooked scientists, dire experiments, and questionable studies and add a fun twist while they’re at it. And as we all know, laughter is the best medicine, and the best way to take is to chuckle at things we can easily relate to.
