Out with Insta, in with TikTok

For an insight into the thoughts of teenagers about social media, TikTok is the place to look. “Anyone else feel like it’s low key kinda cringe to post on Instagram now?” asks one in a clip uploaded to the video-sharing platform in June. It has been liked over 368,000 times. Facebook, which owns Instagram, is under fire after Frances Haugen, a former employee, leaked internal documents suggesting the firm was aware it was causing harm to the mental health of teenage girls in particular. But the internet’s youngest users have been falling out of love with Facebook’s platforms for a while. American children aged between four and 15 spent an average of 17 minutes per day on Facebook in 2020, down from 18 minutes in 2019, according to a report from Qustodio, a security software company. Instagram stayed at 40 minutes, and Snapchat was up from 37 minutes to 47. Screen time on TikTok, meanwhile, surged, from 44 average daily minutes to 87 — last month it hit 1bn monthly users.

(Adapted from “TikTok and toxic memes,” published by The Economist on Oct 23, 2021)

The spending boom

Even before they emerged from the Covid-19 lockdowns of spring 2020, American consumers began buying lots of tangible, durable things — initially home office equipment but soon also appliances, furniture, televisions, cars, trucks, motorboats, recreational vehicles, and even books. There’s been something of a pullback recently, caused in part by supply constraints at automakers, but real consumer spending on durable goods was still running 21pc above pre-pandemic levels in August, the most recent month for which data are available. A key characteristic of durable goods is that they’re, well, durable. They don’t need to be replaced every month or year. Such a sharp acceleration in the pace of purchases, especially in the face of a long-running economic shift toward services and away from goods, is clearly not something that can continue indefinitely. “If something cannot go on forever it will stop,” the late economist Herbert Stein once said. The durable goods spending boom will end, and with it the port backups, product shortages, and price increases that have accompanied it.

(Adapted from “The Durable Goods Spending Boom Is Headed Towards A Slowdown,” by Justin Fox, published on October 11, 2021, by Bloomberg Businessweek)

Who owns Bitcoin?

More and more retail investors are investing in Bitcoin, but big questions remain unanswered: who are the biggest owners of Bitcoin? And how is the cryptocurrency being used? Amid calls from industry participants for even wider Bitcoin adoption, either as a public investment vehicle or legal tender, MIT Sloan professor of finance and entrepreneurship Antoinette Schoar teamed up with Igor Makarov, a finance professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, to shed some light on the Bitcoin ecosystem. “A better understanding of the Bitcoin network and its participants should be the basis for any decision about how to integrate these new cryptocurrencies into the traditional financial system,” the pair write in their new working paper, “Blockchain Analysis of the Bitcoin Market.” Among their findings were: 1) 80pc of Bitcoin volume in an average week can be traced to exchanges. 2) Illegal activity is a small fraction (3pc) of what actually goes on. 3) Prior to May 2021, when China cracked down on Bitcoin mining and trading, 60-70pc miners were in China

(Adapted from “Bitcoin: Who Owns It, Who Mines It, Who’s Breaking The Law,” by Betsy Vereckey, published on Oct 14, 2021, by MIT Management Sloan School)

Grow your influence

One of the first lessons of becoming a leader or manager is realising that you are now part of something bigger. The majority of your successes will be through the successes of others. Your job is to make sure your colleagues are inspired enough to work towards your vision. To do that, you need to form a connection. Here are three ways to get started: 1) Start with building trust. Prioritise meeting one-on-one with each of your direct reports and peers. Ask questions like: What does success look like for you? What do you want to be known as? 2) Be open to being influenced. You don’t have to have the last word on everything. Asking for your team’s opinions and listening to understand and expand your perspective sends the right leadership signal. 3) Adapt your message to your audience. Figure out others’ communication style, their behaviours, and the values behind those behaviours.

(Adapted from, “3 Ways to Grow Your Influence in a New Job,” by Luis Velasquez and Jenny Fernandez, published on October 19, 2021, by Harvard Business Review Ascend)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 1st, 2021