The Prescription Economy
“No one is ever completely safe from the critical gaze of a culture steeped in the makeover ethos."
— Micki McGee, Self-Help, INC
I have a theory that you can measure the decline of any social media platform by the time it takes for its feed to become a firehose of unsolicited advice. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all sludge piles of advice now, but it took them years to devolve. TikTok took maybe 18 months. Substack Notes? Like 3 months. Threads? Instant.
Most of us (I think) can agree that the vapid posturing that occurs through posting advice on social media makes a platform less enjoyable. I don't open one of these apps in the hopes that I'll learn the one weird trick that can turn my frown upside down or give me six-pack abs. What we once loved about these platforms is how people shared their everyday descriptions of life, love, family, and curiosity. But much of that mutual exchange of experience has been ceded to the commercial interest of advice.
After all, we love advice. We also hate advice. We love it when someone can tell us what we should do next. And we also hate being told what we should do next. So what gives? Today, a description of why that is. But first, things are going to get awkward.
Awkwardness: A Case Study
In her book Awkwardness: A Theory, philosopher Alexandra Plakias describes the experience, conditions, and purpose of awkwardness. She argues that there are no awkward people, only awkward situations. Awkward situations are those in which one or more participants lack an appropriate social script to guide the interaction.
Plakias's text progresses through two modes: the phenomenological—dealing with the experience of awkwardness—and the epistemological—dealing with knowledge and knowing. By observing social awkwardness in this way, Plakias de-pathologizes it and presents it as a common, even useful phenomenon that can occur in any interaction between two or more people.
Contrast that approach with one of the top search results for “social awkwardness," a massive article from BetterUp. BetterUp, a company that combines tech and coaching to offer a "Human Transformation Platform," defines social awkwardness as "when you have difficulty communicating or engaging with others in a social setting." The article continues by offering a number of causes of social awkwardness, including introversion, neurodivergence, perfectionism, and anxiety, and then offers 15 ways to overcome social awkwardness.
While Plakias's theory begins with the assertion that there are no awkward people, BetterUp's explainer assumes that the reader is an awkward person. Okay, that might be a bit unfair. At the least, BetterUp's article offers a framework for self-diagnosis and a prescription for dealing with the ailment.
BetterUp's article and Plakias's book revolve around many of the same topics. They both address neurodivergence, communication challenges, and self-consciousness. Plakias uses experience and observation to find patterns and make sense of a common social concern. BetterUp uses authority and advice to guide readers toward self-treatment and, ultimately, hiring a coach as an antidote. BetterUp's article includes over 200 instances of forms of the second-person pronoun (a common grammatical indicator of advice-heavy content). Plakias's entire book includes just 74.
In short, Plakias's philosophical theory is descriptive; BetterUp's article is prescriptive.
Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
Descriptive content seeks to explain, catalog, or narrate its subjects. It treats subjects with curiosity. When descriptive content presents an argument, it argues for a way of interpreting and making sense of a phenomenon.
Prescriptive content presents solutions, advice, or rules to guide future action. It treats the audience as agents who will act on the topic at hand. Prescriptive content also argues for a way of responding to a phenomenon.
For what it's worth, I'm using the word “content" very broadly—and somewhat reluctantly. I do mean “content" as in books, videos, podcasts, newsletters, etc. But I also mean the content of our conversations and stories, as well as the content of our nonverbal communication. More on that in a bit.
Both descriptive and prescriptive content have valuable uses. One is not better, more rigorous, or more honest than the other. But confusing one for the other can create serious misunderstandings for content creators and consumers alike.
Consider grammar. As far as linguistics is concerned, grammar is a descriptive system. It describes the construction and common patterns of a language. However, your high school English teacher probably didn't see grammar as merely descriptive. No, they likely used a red pen to mark up your essays whenever you used the “wrong" punctuation or ended a sentence with a preposition. And they were probably right to do so—a common understanding of grammar makes written communication clearer for everyone.
The way we use language is social and dynamic. We often break “rules" intentionally for artistic or emotional effect. We pick up on evolving syntax from the TV shows we watch or the books we read. But when we classify grammar as a prescriptive system only, we lose out on the benefits of that dynamism. Further, we learn to see “bad grammar" as a problem to be solved rather than as communication that might very well be more than the sum of its parts.
The Prescription Economy
“The literature of self-improvement defines its readers as insufficient, as lacking some essential feature of adequacy," writes social theorist Micki McGee, “and then offers itself as the solution." As I've argued before, the “literature of self-improvement" is the water in which we all swim today. Especially in our convenience-oriented, service-based market, prescriptions for better living are both perfect marketing and perfect product. McGee continues:
The resulting contagion of insufficiency constitutes the self-improvement industry as both self-perpetuating and self-serving. While the purchase of a commodity—mouthwash or dandruff shampoo—was once the route to some sense of interpersonal social security, today the simple purchase of a commodity is insufficient: altogether too easy. Instead, one must embrace a lifestyle, a series of regimes of time management or meditation, of diet and spiritual exploration, of self-scrutiny and self-affirmation.
The logic of the prescription economy leads many of us to interpret descriptive content as, instead, prescriptive.
Whether the ideas we receive are intended as prescriptions or not, we take them as instructions. The same is true when we're the ones communicating those ideas; we describe our own experiences and have them reinterpreted by the audience as prescriptions. Value is predicated on acknowledging (even amplifying) insufficiency and proffering a solution. So, prescriptive content is assumed to be more valuable and, therefore, worthy of engagement than descriptive content.
The prescription economy necessarily creates imbalances between those who have a prescription to offer and those who believe they need it. Power and value flow from one to the other. Economies of description—say the moms' group you're part of or the running club you joined—are predicated on the inherent value of everyone's experience, perspective, and participation. Sure, some experiences are more relevant and easily transferable to others, but that doesn't negate the value of other experiences and perspectives. The prescription economy lends itself to straightforward market exchange and avenues for profit. Description economies tend to revolve around interdependence and mutuality.
These market dynamics make the appeal of creating prescriptive content clear. Our market-oriented cultural dynamics make the appeal of consuming prescriptive content clear. In our fast-paced economy and its saturated media environment, prescriptions are stickier than descriptions. When we understand something as a prescription, our brains don't have to work as hard. Instructions fit seamlessly into our worldviews, and our worldviews become increasingly reliant on instructions. We just follow the steps, repeat the process, and wait for the results.
Prescriptions Are Products
Prescriptions are easily turned into commodities. Because they present as solutions to a problem or paths toward a goal, we readily assign them value. Marketers highlight the issue in need of treatment, salespeople write the prescription, and retailers or service providers fill and deliver it. In BetterUp's article, the diagnosis is social awkwardness, the prescription is a set of techniques, and their coaches make sure you take the pill.
Descriptions are also valuable, of course. But they don't fit as neatly into the commodity form or lend themselves to the same kind of diagnostic marketing as prescriptions. Plakias's book, after all, wouldn't be shelved in the self-help section. It's a philosophy book—stylistically accessible but scholarly in form.
So, the difference between prescriptive and descriptive content often, though not always, comes down to a commercial choice. A clinical psychologist can write a psychology book or a self-help book. The self-help book will almost always outsell the psychology book and lead to more business opportunities on the back end. A successful executive can write a memoir or a leadership book. The leadership book will almost always outsell the memoir.
The difference between prescriptive and descriptive content often, though not always, comes down to a commercial choice.
Media like videos, books, and Instagram posts aren't the only source of content. Our choices and actions have content, too. And the description of one person's choices and actions can be easily misconstrued as prescriptive by another.
Between the “contagion of insufficiency," as McGee put it, and the perceived value of prescriptive content, the market for online courses, coaching, and consulting has flourished over the last 15 years. Many people have made a lot of money selling prescriptions based on descriptions of their own choices, often without the context of luck, timing, or network effects. Many more people have spent many thousands of dollars in the hopes that someone else's story or timeline holds the power to cure them of their inadequacy.
Again, as McGee observed, this cycle is self-perpetuating and self-serving. While there are certainly quacks hawking sugar pills, prescribers and patients are more often in a feedback loop that keeps them inventing new medicines and presenting with new ailments, respectively.
Even when there isn't a product for sale, a choice or course of action can be interpreted as a prescription to buy into. I've been through this numerous times. At first, it made sense to me that others would follow my lead when it came to what software to use or what strategic priorities to pursue. But it made much less sense as I started to make decisions based on a better awareness of my personal idiosyncrasies and unique business challenges. In fact, I would (and still do) attempt to dissuade people from doing what I've done.
Especially in the last five years, my choices have resulted from acknowledging a host of my limits, foibles, and needs. No one else would reach the same conclusions or do most of the things I've done in that time. But everyone is looking for direction, for answers, or maybe just something new to try. And that means that anyone with a platform and a perspective will have their choices interpreted as instructions.
I get it. I am not immune to interpreting the descriptive as prescriptive.
That all said, a personal story or experiment can be a source of information and inspiration. A philosophical exploration can spark an idea for interpreting the world differently or taking action from a new perspective. Watching others make choices and take action can help us think through our own options.
Practicing Prescription Discernment
At the risk of prescribing a course of action, there are a few ways we can handle content with care.
As receivers of content—whether we're scrolling, chatting, or digging into a book or course—we can be mindful of how we respond to information. Namely, we can try to maintain a level of detachment from what we observe or learn. Even in environments where content is explicitly prescriptive (e.g., taking a course, reading a how-to article, etc.), we can read between the lines and look for the descriptive information that might help us make decisions independently of our desire to follow directions.
We can also consider the source of the content. Prescriptive content is often a mode of communicating authority. While that authority might be well-earned, it's also quite possible that the prescriptive content is establishing authority. In other words, prescriptive content can make someone sound like more of an expert than they are.
As creators of content—whether we're posting on social media, trading notes with friends, or sharing our expertise—we can take care with the language we use. We can pay special attention to using words like “should" and “how to," leveraging second-person pronouns, and making generalizations in the name of advice. We don't always have to draw a lesson out of the experiences we share.
We can also be transparent about the context from which we're creating or sharing. I often share my idiosyncrasies because they make me more relatable, yes, but also less relatable. They're my context—not yours—so your mileage will vary.
Finally, I've presented descriptive and prescriptive modes as a binary. They're not. Very rarely is content entirely descriptive or entirely prescriptive. Neither are they the only way we communicate. We can't commit to only producing descriptive content in the hopes that we won't accidentally lead someone else astray. I remind myself...
Instead, producing and receiving content through this framework can help us become more discerning. It enables us to accept a wide variety of perspectives and, at the same time, trust that we won't get carried whichever way the wind is blowing. And that's a powerful prescription for critical thinking and personal agency.
