Prior to the rise of social media, you had to do something important to earn the respect and admiration of others. For example, your job, education, and experience all counted as genuine evidence of your credibility — and there was no way to improve status other than actually gaining a better job, education, or experience. Today, “influencers” gain status by means of clicks, and those clicks are often the product of things far less credible than education and experience. Click, click, click…..like, like, like…..and BAM! You’re a star! But the bizarre world of internet fame doesn’t end there, as the more status you gain, the more influence you have — and often on subjects you literally know nothing about. While your doctor might suggest something to you about your health issues, this uber-famous podcaster not trained in medicine is telling you the opposite — who do you trust more?! The obvious answer should be the far more credible doctor, but these days increasingly more people would pick the podcaster due to his online fame. This concerning trend shows no sign of course correction, as online personalities continue to claim “expertise” and speak out loudly and often on subjects they can barely spell, much less provide professional advice about.
A heuristic worth exploring
In psychology, a heuristic is known as a rule or piece of information used in or enabling problem-solving or decision-making, also known as a mental shortcut. We use heuristics all the time, and often — but not always — they help us with decisions. Take the following heuristics as examples:
- If something is expensive, it is of good quality. While this is often the case, it is not always the case. For example, generally speaking, more expensive cars and computers provide more by means of ease of computing ability and driver perks (equating to better quality). We also know that not all expensive things are better, as many clothing brands are expensive, but they do not use better materials. Instead, these companies rely on branding that has been established as high-end, creating an illusion of being better than the competition.
- If something is rare (or scarce), it must be expensive. Again, some things that are scarce are of greater value, including items that are no longer produced and hard to find. But not everything that is rare is valuable — if I gave you the only purple paperclip in the world today, it would not have any greater value than other non-purple paperclips even though it is rare.
For psychologists, a contemporary heuristic may be developing in real time, and that is the following:
If someone is a popular influencer online, they must also be of great knowledge and expertise.
Similar to previously established heuristics, the statement above does have some truth to it, as there are some online personalities known as influencers who really are experts in their respective fields. For example, if there is an emergency room doctor hosting a podcast on how to immediately treat an injury while waiting on an ambulance, we should all pay attention. But what about the majority of podcasters who are simply, well, popular? I’ll steer clear of naming names, but I’m sure you can guess a few of them pretty quickly, people who have become influencers online, but have no credible expertise on many of the subjects they opine about daily.
I mean no disrespect by this, but the fella online telling you how to do your hair and makeup — unless he’s also trained in medicine — should not be telling you what you should do about vaccines.
When it comes to medicine, science, engineering, and other important fields that require education and experience before one can claim “expertise,” it is important that we not grant equivalent expertise to online personalities simply because they have a big following. Perhaps the new heuristic should be much simpler and straightforward: If your favorite online personality has a lot of followers, it simply means he or she has a big following. HARD STOP! Having a big online presence means exactly and only that…it does not mean the person is a legitimate expert in anything at all other than drumming up a following.
Final thoughts
As we increasingly live more of our lives online, popular influencers are being seen as experts — and often for things they know little about. Engaging, polarizing, confident figures tend to command a lot of attention, but is the advice they are spewing of any value? Or, worse yet, is it dangerous? Good for influencers who have learned how to make a great living capitalizing off the internet, but use great caution when assuming if they have a big audience, they must know a lot about a lot of stuff.
drstankovich.com
