Access to information sounds like a positive thing. However, too much information in a short span of time is not quite that. We live in a time where trying to get information has never been easier. All it takes is a quick Google or ChatGPT these days and you can find out what you want about everything and anything.
And while that is beneficial to satisfy your curiosity, it also means that we are all also subject to what information providers are telling us; whether we realise it or not.
In the 2000s to 2010s, news outlets and agencies were the forefront of providing us with that information. And in the last decade or so, it has been social media platforms.
With regards to the former, the thing that we don’t tend to think about at first is that the news that we see actually contains plenty of biases and layers. Not only do many news outlets have political agendas, but they are also largely driven by trying to grow their bottom line. And to do that, it is all about understanding and influencing human behaviour.
Fear-mongering is part of that agenda and when certain news start to get stale, that’s when there needs to be another “shocking” or “major” headline to keep the wheel spinning. And with how quickly news these days disseminate and go through the social media echo chamber, anything new tends to become old in a relatively short period of time.
In adding to that, there is also all the misinformation and all news providers are just wanting to find the next thing that “sells”. It is no longer about what the headline means, but it is about how people react to the headline and how long that impact can last.
And once the same news stories circulate the echo chamber long enough, the world becomes desensitised to it. And that is exactly the same thing that we are seeing in markets.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict from last year is still ongoing and while we’ve seen plenty of reactions – in and out of markets – to that, let’s still take time to digest the fact that there is still bloodshed taking place even until today. Yet, here we are in a time when almost no one else cares already unless you have some vested interest or are directly impacted by it somehow.
We’ve been conditioned to have such a short attention span to things and to quickly brush aside news as fast as they come. It’s all about searching for what is next. Or in some ways, if there is something shinier that comes along, we’ve been habituated to focus on that and forget about what just happened.
It’s a case of ADHD and it has already infected financial markets in a big, big way over the last decade or so.
Take the latest attacks by Hamas on Israel for example. The reaction and fear function in markets barely lasted a day before we got to a recovery rally in risk assets. To think back at how times have changed since markets reacted to the Ebola crisis back in the day.. what a difference time has made really.
The information passthrough in this age is so quick that we as human beings don’t have the luxury to filter everything in a timely manner as well. That means it either makes us desensitised towards certain information or that we have to keep trying to bang at the echo chamber until our voice is heard. And in a sea of millions these days, it takes much more effort to do the latter than the former.
And that means we have but little choice but to adapt to the changes in human behaviour. In this case, it means moving on when the people move on as well and thus, giving birth to the age of ADHD markets.