A community leader highlights how negativity bias and social media amplify trivial complaints, overshadowing genuine progress and policy successes
MALAYSIANS have a peculiar habit – we can turn the smallest issue into a national debate. Maybe it is a symptom of living in a country where everyone has an opinion and a smartphone.
Whatever the reason, we often make mountains out of molehills. Worse still, social media allows even the tiniest of complaints to be turned into a national conversation.
Psychologists call it negativity bias – the human tendency to focus more on what goes wrong than what goes right – where one bad experience overshadows 10 good ones. That is why complaints travel faster than compliments, and a single glitch can drown out months of good performance.
Take Budi95. When it was first introduced, the online noise was quite noticeable. One petrol kiosk experiencing technical glitches was made out as though the entire system had failed nationwide. Others complained of those who fell between the cracks, such as those not possessing valid driving licences, or the sufficiency of the monthly fuel quota.
Yet, one month later, the programme has proven to be largely well implemented. Payments have been smooth and the teething issues have been quickly resolved. What was once branded as a failure quietly became a functioning policy.
The pattern repeats itself with the Aerotrain service at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. For months, social media users joked about its breakdowns, as if the train spent more time idle than running.
Memes, photos and exaggerated stories spread faster than any repair update ever could. But when the Dewan Rakyat was told that the Aerotrain operated at a reliability rate of 99.19%, critics went silent.
I have used the Aerotrain services several times since its relaunch last July and so have my friends. We generally agree that the experience have been pleasant. This is not to deny that things had indeed gone wrong with the service and the ensuing bad press was embarrassing, especially in the run-up to Visit Malaysia Year 2026.
But human nature is such that when things run smoothly most of the time, nobody notices. However, the moment things go wrong ever so slightly, we kick up a fuss.
In school exams, if one were to score 90% and above, one is usually considered the cream of the crop. In the Aerotrain case, it scored 99.19%, which should be exceptional.
In Bukit Bintang, where I am active in community work, I see this propensity to blow things out of proportion all the time, whether among the residents or relevant government agencies or even the private sector. For instance, a small issue like a parking problem or a broken lamp post can spark endless debate while larger long-term upgrades receive little notice. We often miss the forest for the trees. To be honest, I sometimes find myself falling into this trap too.
The problem with living in constant reaction mode is that it shapes how we see everything. We conflate noise with substance and in doing so, we lose track of what really matters. Our resources end up misdirected and spent on the trivial instead of the essential.
To be clear, holding authorities accountable is necessary but accountability requires perspective. It means recognising the difference between genuine failures and noise manufactured to distract.
As Malaysians, we take pride in being outspoken but perhaps we should also cultivate the discipline to pause before reacting, to ask whether what we are hearing is truly significant or just the latest ripple in the noise.
If we can do that, we might find ourselves less distracted by the outrage of the day and more focussed on progress that lasts. Whether it is transport, digital services or policy reforms, substance deserves a louder voice than noise.
Because in the end, nations do not move forward on complaints; they move forward when their people learn to tell the difference between what matters and what merely trends.
Ben Fong Kok Seng
Chairperson
Bukit Bintang Parliamentary Zone Residents’ Representative Council
