Jim Rohn said “you are the average of the 5 people you spend most time with”.
What happens when you’ve never met the people you spend most of your time with?
Phone over family
Two major technological and social factors are intersecting.
The first factor is time engaging online. Take your average Brit. She spends 2-3 hours a day engaging with entertainment online. In the US, this figure jumps to 4 hours, with numbers climbing each year.
Platforms scooping up our attention include all the usual suspects: YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, Instagram and Linkedin. We are all spending more time connecting with entertainment online.
In the olden days – 5 years ago – this used to mean Farmville.
Now it means video: YouTube videos, Instagram videos, TikTok videos, video games or videos of people playing video games. Video is dominating all major online channels we use.
The second factor is friendship.
Your average Brit spends 30 hours a month with close friends and family.
Compare that to time spent online, it’s clear that many people already spend more than double the amount of time engaging with online entertainment than with their closest friends and family.
Together, these factors are blurring the lines between engaging online with creators you’ve never met and engaging with friends and family you’ve known for years.
MC Hammer in the information age
Some of the most influential online creators in the world have now surpassed a decade in their field.
Take Marques Brownlee aka MKBHD. You might’ve never heard of him, but he’s been making tech review videos on YouTube for 13 years and has 15 million subscribers.
In the past three years Marques has interviewed President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
What about someone you have heard of: Joe Rogan.
His first podcast episode was in 2009. Rogan has created so much content that if you quit your job and listened to his podcast five days a week, eight hours a day, it would take you 2 years to get through it all.
Online personalities are our new habit formers.
They influence our perception of major political, economic and social issues. Moreover, we use them as a benchmark to our place in the world. Just like we do with friends.
When it comes to online benchmarks, Instagram is king.
If you exclusively follow one type of person, over time you are influenced by what they do, what they wear or what they say.
Humans are evolutionally wired to seek out and replicate success to ensure our survival. The only difference now is that the successful person might not be a tribe leader on the plains, but is instead on the other side of a screen.
Hero worshipping for the digital age.
Of course, being influenced by people we don’t know personally is nothing new. TV and Radio have been effective in that arena for decades. But there is a monumental difference between the scheduled 30-minute programming of The Sky At Night, versus the democratised, 24/7 content consumption we see today.
Take legendary musical inspiration and fashion icon Stanley Kirk Burrell aka MC Hammer.
In the 90’s, if you were a super fan of MC Hammer you could try and tune into live TV talk shows he appeared on, buy CDs and possibly even read the odd magazine interview.
In 2022, MC Hammer fans have live footage of his day-to-day life as it happens, not to mention the hundreds of hours of YouTube content dedicated to his illustrious, ever popular Hammer Pants.
A world away from a bi-annual Top of The Pops Magazine interview.
The pace at which we consume has also changed. Binge watching is usually associated with series, but could easily be used to describe the way we engage with influencers.
If you like an online creator, there’s typically a colossal library of their past content at your fingertips. The more time you spend consuming their material, the more influenced you become to their way of thinking.
Online personalities are going to be one of the main influences of an entire generation, which makes what we consume – our ‘content diet’ – extremely important.
Don’t eat McDonald’s every day
What we eat, the amount we eat and when we eat play a fundamental role in our physical and mental health.
What content we consume, the amount we consume and when we consume play a fundamental role in our character, opinions, and personality.
The idea here is to not eat McDonald’s content every day. And that’s coming from a former employee.
As a starting point, we should view all content through the lens of incentive.
What is the incentive of the creator behind the content – either an individual or corporate publisher. What is their ultimate objective, how does this objective impact and inform the way you view their content?
The best example of this is online news.
If an online news site doesn’t have a paywall, it’s usually supported by advertising. Advertisers pay the publisher based on the number of clicks and traffic they receive. Over time an incentive structure forms – articles with higher clicks receive more advertising revenue.
The publisher is drawn into a cycle of creating articles to maximise traffic. At this point the incentive of the publisher is to create articles that drive traffic, not necessarily inform, as has historically been the role of news.
Another major incentive for online news is to neatly fit into algorithms. Articles are screened by tech platforms for structure, keywords, search engine friendliness, length and frequency of publication. This algorithmic bias is more nuanced, but important nonetheless.
A more basic example of creator incentive is an Instagram influencer selling protein powder as part of a paid partnership. Do they really use that protein powder, or are they simply offering it to you, their loyal follower, to monetize their audience?
Your level of trust in the individual or organisation dictates your conclusion.
By the way – I’m no different. By reading this right now, I’m hoping you will be influenced and (ideally) informed. That’s my incentive.
Given this broad set of incentives it’s critical that your content diet is intentional, and not something that just falls into your lap.
Go beyond the Ferrari
The good news is that there is an easy solution to achieving a balanced content diet.
Follow varied creators.
Whether it’s an organisation or an individual, it’s essential to see both sides of an argument. If a news article stirs up your emotions, look for another publication that takes a different view – then decide what you believe to be the reality.
If you love following the guy who constantly posts videos of his Ferrari, balance it out by following a personal finance influencer. Understand how much you need to earn to buy and run a supercar, what income, assets and liabilities are – go beyond the Ferrari.
We know that over time, humans slowly mould our opinion into those we spend the most time with. Ensure that you spend at least a portion of your online attention with those who you strongly disagree with.
Empathy is a seemingly lost art in the 21st Century. Internet driven echo chambers are solidifying our opinions on basically everything.
Getting this balanced view might not always feel natural, but it’s the digital equivalent of a debate. You might strongly disagree, but the fact you’re listening to the other side of the argument is critical.
Design your influences
Harvard professor Dr. David McClelland said the people you habitually associate with “determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life”.
In the information age we habitually associate with online creators.
You are the average of the 5 people you follow.
It’s your personal responsibility to ensure that those who gradually mould your opinions are trustworthy, competent and authentic.