For most of us, trying to make sense out of the chaos that is our life is a daily struggle. It’s one of the ways we’ve come to cope with how random it can really be. We’ll try to discern patterns in things that are seemingly devoid of patterns. We’ll come up with ideas to clear up confusion. This has really helped to keep us going along as a species, yet it doesn’t always work out the way it seems. Yes, it does work sometimes, but those sometimes only matter if they can happen all the time. The rest of the time it’s just mere speculation or superstition. In psychology, this occurrence is called an illusory correlation. In the random events that continually happen in our lives, some will have a pattern that seem to have significant meaning, but this only happens because of the large scale of events that occur for the few to have had a chance to seem connected.

An example would be when I attempt to catch a ride on the CATA bus. My ipod touch only has wifi access, so the only time I have access to the internet is where I can get a connection through PSU’s wifi. This is important because I like to use the CATA-bus app to keep track of how far away the buses are from my stop, but this requires access to the internet. Luckily, I’ve been able to connect to the internet at the bus stops that I regularly waited at. This led me to believe that the bus stops had a small device that provided wifi for people to gain access to the internet in order to use the bus app. What I didn’t know was that the bus stops I regularly waited at were beside dorms and other such buildings that were the source of the wifi. It wasn’t until I had to wait at other stops that I realized that I was wrong. A couple of coincidental occurrences had led me to believe that a particular thing was true, but really, it was only because I was trying to make sense of the randomness of it all. Wifi near bus stops depended on the buildings near them to provide wifi.