The Energy Drink Didn't Save You

🪝 Hook

"I drank an energy drink before the exam and passed. Energy drinks help you study!"

Hold on. Did the drink help — or did you just... study?

This is one of the most common mistakes your brain makes, and once you see it, you'll start noticing it everywhere: assuming that because two things happened together, one caused the other.

🧠 What's Actually Going On?

Here's a true fact: correlation is not causation.

Correlation means: two things happen around the same time, or tend to go together.

Causation means: one thing makes the other happen.

Your brain hates not knowing why things happen. So when two things show up together, it immediately tries to link them: "A happened, then B happened — A must have caused B!"

But that's often completely wrong.

Here are some real correlations that have nothing to do with each other:

• 🍦 Ice cream sales go up in summer. Drowning rates also go up in summer. Does ice cream cause drowning? (No — both are caused by hot weather.)
• 📉 Countries with more TV sets per person tend to have longer life expectancy. Does watching TV make you live longer? (No — both are caused by being wealthy.)
• 🐓 Roosters crow before sunrise. Does crowing cause the sun to rise? (Ask any rooster. They think so.)

Your brain is a pattern-matching machine. It's incredibly good at finding patterns — and incredibly bad at checking whether those patterns actually mean anything.

📱 Real-Life (You've Definitely Done This)

The playlist myth:

"I was listening to lo-fi hip hop when I finally understood derivatives. Lo-fi hip hop makes me smarter."

Maybe. Or maybe you'd just had enough sleep that day, you were in the right headspace, and the topic finally clicked. The music was playing. The understanding happened. Correlation.

The lucky hoodie:

"Every time I wear my blue hoodie to a match, we win."

You've worn it to... four matches. You won two. But you remember the wins way more vividly than the losses. (More on that in the next chapter.) Your hoodie is not a sports performance supplement.

The wellness trap (real and everywhere on TikTok):

"I started taking this supplement and I slept better!"

Did the supplement work? Or did you also change your sleep schedule, reduce caffeine, start going to bed earlier because you were now paying attention to sleep? All those things happened together. Which one helped?

This is why medical research uses controlled trials — because without them, we have no idea what's actually doing what.

🔍 How to Spot It

The classic tell: someone says "because" or "that's why" when they really just mean "at the same time as."

Questions to ask:

• Could both things be caused by a third thing? (Hot weather → ice cream AND swimming)
• Did I try it without the other variable? (Did you ever pass an exam without the energy drink?)
• Is this a sample size of, like, three? (Three coincidences don't make a rule)
• Do I want this to be true? (Motivated reasoning makes you way more likely to accept weak evidence)

Also: watch for the post hoc fallacy — Latin for "after this, therefore because of this." Just because B happened after A doesn't mean A caused B.

You ate a weird sandwich. Later you felt weird. The sandwich did it? Maybe. Or maybe you were getting sick already. Or it was stress. Or coincidence.

🎯 The Challenge

Hunt for fake causation this week.

Every time you hear (or say!) "because" — pause and ask: Is this actually cause and effect, or just two things that happened around the same time?

Look for it in:

• Ads ("Athletes drink this water. Drink this water to be athletic!")
• Health content on TikTok/Instagram ("I did X and my skin cleared up!")
• Your own superstitions ("I always do well when I use this pen...")
• News headlines ("People who eat chocolate live longer!")

Bonus challenge: Try to think of one thing you genuinely believe caused something — then seriously try to imagine another explanation. Can you find one?

You don't have to be cynical. You just have to ask one extra question: Could something else explain this?

That one question makes you smarter than most adults on the internet.

Next up: Your memory is lying to you — and it's very convincing about it.