This article explores the rise of the advice economy and its potential downsides. It argues that while seeking advice can be beneficial, the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming and lead to distorted perspectives. The author draws on personal experiences and observations to illustrate how biases, trends, and financial incentives can influence the quality and objectivity of advice.
We’re no longer ashamed of being addicted to other people’s advice. Therapy used to be considered a fad of the young – but almost a– but advice is not always so expensive. Parenting advice now spans TikTok, Facebook and incendiary Mumsnet threads – a far cry from the one baby book from M&S my mum depended on when she had a baby, alone, in a foreign country 40 years ago. Full disclosure: I’ve made use of therapy and job coaching and I was a consultant for three years.
I believe strongly in a fresh, professional perspective, over trying to hold up a funhouse mirror to ourselves; our baked-in biases distort. But what if advice distorts, too, by reflecting the vogue of the time? This is particularly evident in the realm of parenting advice, to the extent Instagrammers spoof the modern advice of “gentle parenting” by responding to a toddler who is hitting everything in sight in a department store by entreating them to use “kind hands” andthat the surfeit of parenting advice can come at the expense of instinct – and can convince us there is one right answer. Indeed, I recently had a physio whose concern about my knee injury would expand in direct correlation with the sessions my health insurance provider approved, bringing with it endless forms of therapies – manual, electrical and acupuncture. (NHS doctors barely give you the time of day – but asIt’s not that the “advice economy” is made up of greedy charlatans: when I was in consulting, we genuinely believed that companies could benefit from our “sell-on” opportunities – work we had created for ourselves. But if you’re paid to give someone advice, you’re hardly going to factor in competing demands they have in their life (I’m thinking of the mental health researchers who rather sweetly proffered the suggestionfor our wellbeing)
ADVICE ECONOMY PARENTING ADVICE THERAPY BIASES PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE
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