Success doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone.
– Will R. Young
Most conversations about investing losses focus on markets: volatility, timing, and bad picks. But in a world where information never stops, another cost is harder to see and easier to underestimate: distraction.
In a recent conversation, Will R. Young—a CFP and behavioral finance practitioner who studies how attention shapes decision-making—argued that modern investors don’t suffer from a lack of information. They suffer from a lack of clarity. And in his view, clarity isn’t something you find by consuming more news. It’s something you build by learning what to ignore.
Information isn’t the same as insight
Young described today’s media environment as “junk food for the mind”—abundant, stimulating, and often low in usefulness. The problem isn’t that people can’t access quality information; it’s that the volume of inputs creates the feeling of being informed without the benefits of understanding.
Behavioral science offers a reason this feels so compelling. Young referenced the availability heuristic—the mental shortcut where people overweight whatever they hear most frequently. When a topic dominates feeds, headlines, group chats, or office conversations, it begins to feel more important, more likely, and more urgent than it really is. The result is attention pulled toward the loudest signal, not the most meaningful one.
He compared the effect to distracted driving: constant glances away from the road make you less capable of evaluating what’s directly in front of you. In investing, that “road” is long-term value.
Why constant updates can make decision-making worse
Young’s critique wasn’t aimed at learning. It was aimed at repeated stimulation—the drip of quotes, opinions, alerts, charts, and hot takes that invite people to act before they think.
He described a familiar cycle: an investor buys, then sells, then regrets selling, then buys again—often reacting to the emotional weather created by short-term price movements. When investment behavior starts to resemble quick reversals and compulsive checking, it can drift into something closer to gambling: chasing wins, avoiding discomfort, and needing the dopamine hit of “being right.”
Design plays a role here. Many modern trading platforms reduce friction and increase reward cues, which can intensify impulsive behavior. When markets are accessible 24/7, and every fluctuation is visible, the temptation isn’t just to know what’s happening—it’s to do something about it.
And constant action isn’t the same as good action.
“Often wrong, seldom in doubt”: the confidence trap
One of the most pointed moments in the interview came as Young described why expert certainty can be so persuasive—especially online. Strong delivery can feel like credibility. But confidence is not evidence.
To illustrate, he shared a story from his early career: he asked interns to review analyst commentary around Apple at the time the iPhone launched and compare it to what the stock did afterward. His takeaway wasn’t “analysts are bad.” It was that groups can be confidently aligned—and still collectively wrong.
That matters because humans are social learners. We tend to adopt the beliefs of our group, especially under stress. Young described this as a subtle tradeoff: you can be “factually wrong but socially accurate.” In other words, you may hold an incorrect view, but you feel safe holding it because your community shares it.
For investors, that safety can be expensive.
The upstream problem: how to think independently without being reckless
If crowds can be wrong, does independent thinking mean ignoring everyone? Not exactly.
Young described successful independent decision-making as less about contrarian identity and more about process. Being “the fish swimming upstream,” as he put it, requires preparation—because emotional discomfort is predictable when your view differs from the crowd. Without a plan, discomfort becomes a trigger. With a plan, it becomes a signal to slow down, verify, and stick to your principles.
Humor also showed up as one of his tools for emotional regulation. When people spiral into “end of the world” headlines, he tries to pull them back to proportional thinking: if you believe a company will still exist in a year, why let today’s price movement decide your entire strategy?
Underneath the joke is a serious point: fear compresses time. It makes the short term feel like the whole story.
Selective ignorance vs. avoidance
One of the more nuanced themes in the conversation was Young’s distinction between selective ignorance and being uninformed.
Avoidance is refusing to look at reality because it’s uncomfortable. Selective ignorance is refusing to let low-quality or emotionally manipulative inputs dominate your mental bandwidth. It means choosing information that supports better judgment, then limiting the rest.
Young argued that people often confuse “more inputs” with “more control.” But control in complex systems is limited. The better goal is reliable decision-making—especially when emotions run high.
A practical framework for clarity in a noisy world
When asked how someone can stay informed without getting consumed, Young kept returning to structure. His suggestions were less about “the right opinion” and more about the questions that protect you from persuasion:
1) Define your goal (in writing).
If you can’t clearly name what you’re trying to achieve, any compelling narrative can hijack your attention. Goals create boundaries.
2) Ask what the other person’s goal is.
Is the person informing you trying to educate, entertain, win status, or provoke emotion? Understanding incentives changes how you interpret claims.
3) Get specific about definitions.
Words like “healthy,” “safe,” “good returns,” or “low risk” can mean different things to different people. If you don’t define them, you can’t evaluate whether the advice fits you.
4) Use a reasoning process, not a reaction.
Young emphasized comparing sources, stress-testing claims, and looking for how an idea performs across time—not how it feels in the moment.
5) Decide your evaluation metrics ahead of time.
If you try something, how will you judge success in three months? Six months? What would count as “better,” and what would count as “worse”? Without metrics, people drift into vague impressions and confirmation bias.
Even when he discussed non-financial examples—like dieting—his point was consistent: feedback loops matter. A plan without measurement turns into hope. Measurement turns it into learning.
Paying attention to what people do, not what they say
Some of Young’s most concrete observations weren’t about macroeconomics at all. They were about noticing real-world behavior: what people buy, what they keep paying for, what they cancel, and what they return to when conditions normalize.
This is a classic behavioral lens: human routines reveal priorities. When investors train themselves to watch behavior—not headlines—they’re less likely to get swept into story-driven swings.
The deeper argument: attention is an asset
By the end of the conversation, the topic had widened beyond investing. Young linked financial decision-making to the same skills that protect relationships, health, and long-term goals: emotional regulation, thoughtful judgment, and consistency.
In a culture that rewards speed, his stance was almost old-fashioned: slow thinking isn’t weakness—it’s an advantage. Not because it guarantees certainty, but because it reduces the odds of predictable mistakes.
Or as the conversation suggested more quietly than loudly: if you want better outcomes, start by guarding what you let into your mind.
If you change one thing this week, let it be this: write down what you’re trying to build, then review it weekly. Not to chase perfection… just to interrupt the drift. In a noisy world, drifting is often the most expensive habit we don’t notice.
