Premise

Today we go through our lives consuming vast amounts of information: read the news, scroll Instagram or Tiktok, watch series or movies and more. But we really never actually notice how much of this consumption affects our psyche. What is have noticed is that every piece of information we consume, affects us to some extent. No matter how small, with enough exposure it can influence you without you realising. Later in the post I will go over some examples where this can be really bad. On the other hand, being aware of this can give you a small super power to help you achieve your goals, and later I will show some examples to illustrate this.

We consume much more than before

What is the normal amount of information to consume? I guess this question has no answer as it depends on the context, but it makes you wonder how did the average amount of information a human consumes has changed over time. At the start of the 20th century we really only had radio and paper. People mostly read books to consume information formally and radio for more quick information. In those times I also assume that other people where a big source of information, where you heard some gossip from neighbours or relatives.

Now taking a look at the world today, and we can see things have changed. Now radio and books are not so popular and media such as TV and smartphones have become the new normal. There is a big rabbit hole here where I could dive into comparing the different kinds of media consumption channels and how they affect us differently but I will save it for another post. The main conclusion from this is that, new information channels such as TV and smartphones are much more involved with our senses, as such we make a stronger connection with the content we see.

What connection do you make to the media?

Personally as I have experienced myself, media consumption in a way makes our brain imagine itself in the position of the camera recording the video. I suspect this ability comes from the empathetic ability of humans. Say we watch a video on a subject that is particularly sad and our brain makes us feel sad. Our brain has built this empathetic connection what is happening in the video.

Videos can more easily create a stronger sense of empathy than text, and I suspect this is because we are exploiting human senses in a much deeper way than text. In a way even though you know that the video you are watching is just a video, your brain unconsciously thinks it is real (to a certain extent). A good example of this I think is a classic prank where you show a video to your friends that has a jump scare in the middle. In these videos the person watching is not expecting this scary moment but then suddenly the video puts a loud nose and an image flashes on the screen, which causes the observer to jump from their seat. Even though the person watching knew this was just a video their unconscious did not.

Even though our conscious brain has evolved and become more intelligent, our unconscious brain is still the same it was thousands of years ago

How does this affect us negativelly

Now lets use the example of the news as it is easy to point out the negatives. Let’s take the debate of immigration as an example just for the sake of argument. This post has no position on this subject. Our subject watches news that are skewed to viewing immigration in a negative light, and thus show vast amounts of news about the negative side of immigration. Our subject due to only being exposed to one side of the news story, will go on to develop a strong sense that all immigration is negative and we should stop it. On the other hand, in reality these negative points might be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but they got exalted through a selection bias.

Another example that is very prominent in our lives today are influencers. Their name points out that they influence people, so us people should realise that who you watch will influence you (sounds obvious right?). Say there is an influencer online that is very funny but has some views on some social matter you don’t entirely agree with. You don’t mind these views as you mainly watch him because he is funny, and the rest does not matter to you. Believe it or not, over time there is a high chance you will grow to accept or even agree with these views unconsciously. Now the problem here is that accepting views without proper though leads to emotional argument without rationality, which is why this is negative as these views are not your own but borrowed.

How can we use this to our advantage

Now flipping the coin around by now it should be clear that I believe that the unconscious is delicate, it changes and affects us imperceptibly. But we can still take advantage of this. For example we could surround ourselves with media that represents values that we admire.

Lets say you admire people that control their emotions, and wish to be able do so. A good way to use this influence to your advantage is to get media like books or videos that talk about people that are able to control their emotions. The media itself does not have to be about the subject itself, as long as the subject the media is about possesses these virtues it will be beneficial to your goal. For example a novel where the main character has to develop self control over his own emotions.

Conclusion

The main idea of this post is to encourage people to notice this influence going on when they consume and be aware this happens.

The unconscious is still “young” and must be taken care of. Take care of your unconscious and it will take care or you.