What Is Audience Capture, and Should You Worry about It?

Thinking about: Mind optimization

In earlier posts, I talked about surrogate thinkers—the people you let think on your behalf. I suggested that people resort to them in part out of laziness: Thinking is difficult, and if you can get someone else to do it for you, why not do so? In other cases, people resort to surrogate thinkers because they assume—in many cases, incorrectly—that they lack the mental wherewithal to think for themselves.

You might assume that Thinkers would be averse to using surrogates, but this is not the case. On discovering an ominous swelling in their abdomen, for example, Thinkers will go to a physician for expert advice. Ideally, this person will be a fellow Thinker—at least with respect to medicine—who will base their diagnosis and treatments on evidence-based structured reasoning.

A Thinker might also turn to an expert for information about the world and current events, or about how to accomplish some objective. Online, we can find people willing to play this role. They might stand ready to explain the situation in Sudan, to tell you how to improve your golf swing, and maybe even to teach you how to think more and better. A Thinker will take care in choosing an online expert, but having done so, they might subsequently rely on them as their go-to for information and advice about some subject.

Experts know that helping someone can mean telling them things they don’t want to hear. A physician, for example, knows that many patients don’t want to be told that they need to get more exercise and eat more fruit and vegetables—that what they seek is a quick fix to a long-standing problem. A good physician—one whose goal is to help their patients stay healthy—will hold the line and maybe lose patients as a result.

This brings us to experts who address large audiences via social media—people like myself. (In case you are wondering, I consider my area of expertise to be the nature and practice of open-minded critical thinking.) These experts might start out with the objective of helping people. As their audience grows, they might take it as evidence that they are successfully getting their message across and are thereby helping an increasing number of people. As their numbers continue to grow, they might find themselves routinely checking their subscriber count, and with each uptick they might experience a delightful pop of dopamine. Not long thereafter, they might find themselves obsessively checking those numbers.

These online experts might become so fixated on growing their audience that they start changing their message. In particular, instead of telling subscribers what they need to hear, they will be tempted to tell them what they want to hear. If they have monetized their platform, this temptation will be that much stronger. This is the point at which the audience capture phenomenon can emerge. By pandering to subscribers’ confirmation bias, these experts can not only retain their audience but also grow it, maybe in spectacular fashion. At the same time, though, they will be abandoning their original goal in reaching out to an online audience.

Social media isn’t necessary for audience capture. By way of illustration, consider the case of Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the early 2000s, he was a respected surgeon and academic, and was clearly a Thinker with respect to medicine. In 2004, he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, on which he gave viewers science-based advice, along the lines of “eat more fruit and veggies.” He subsequently got his own show but discovered that in order to keep his ratings up, he couldn’t just keep repeating this advice. As a result, he drifted into “alternative medicine,” in which he gave viewers what they wanted: quick and easy cures for chronic conditions. He had fallen victim to audience capture. Dr. Oz recently regained the spotlight when President Trump appointed him Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Although Oz was a Thinker with respect to medicine, it is unclear whether he was also a Thinker with respect to non-medical subjects. Realize, however, that even a full-fledged Thinker can fall victim to audience capture. Thinkers are only human, after all, and are therefore influenced by incentives.

Tell an online Thinker that they can become rich and famous—or at least more affluent and better known—by changing their message, and their thinking might be led astray. In particular, they might divert their brainpower to rationalize having changed their message, unaware that they have been intellectually seduced.

Before moving on, realize that in cases of audience capture, it isn’t the Thinker who has captured their audience. It’s the audience that has captured the Thinker—not that this was their intention. All they sought was confirmation of their beliefs, which the “fallen Thinker”—who was now playing the role of cognitive spa attendant—was willing to provide.

This is a good time to reconsider your favorite online experts. You might have chosen them with great care, on the basis of their ability to provide evidence-based reasons for their conclusions. Even though they were originally reliable, there is a chance that they have subsequently fallen victim to audience capture. Do they ever challenge your beliefs? Do they take the time to explain how they reached their conclusions? Or do they just congratulate you for thinking like they do? If they have indeed been captured, it is time to bid them adieu and find new experts.

I realize that as a self-professed online expert, whose audience is growing apace, I am vulnerable to audience capture. Indeed, when my numbers fall after publishing a post, I find myself wondering whether publishing it was a mistake. Maybe I should avoid such topics in the future? At such moments, I have to remind myself of my goal in launching this substack: to push people toward the Thinker end of the intellectual spectrum and maybe even transform them into outright Thinkers.

My hope is that by recognizing my susceptibility to audience capture—and publicly admitting as much—I reduce my chances of falling victim to it. Will I succeed? Stay tuned to find out!