The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption

Most of America is aware that our society as a whole is experiencing an ever-expanding obesity epidemic: 62% of adult Americans are considered overweight. However, the amount of Americans suffering from another epidemic, information overconsumption, is much higher. This new epidemic is leaving society as a whole left in the dark amount important issues and news happening around us everyday. In the book, The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption, author Clay. A Johnson provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy and balanced way, by showing us what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective. He argues that consuming too much junk information can lead to arrogance or cluelessness, which is known as information overconsumption. Therefore, we must develop healthy information consumption habits by being more aware of the selection and analysis of the information we consume.

                        

BUY ME!

Symptoms

Throughout the book, Johnson (pictured below)

first gives the symptoms of overconsumption, describes how to master data literacy, and finally gives you the skills and knowledge to master consuming knowledge. Let’s begin with the symptoms of information overconsumption. Johnson talks about six main ones; however, there are many other symptoms out there that we may have not even discovered yet. The five main symptoms are: apnea, poor sense of time, loss of social breadth, distorted sense of reality, and attention fatigue. The first, apnea, is the irregularity in body rates due to technology. For example, “email apnea” is when your breathing and heart rate is irregular during the times you are checking or writing emails. Other irregularities could include your heart rate speeding up when you receive a text message. Many times, this increase in heart rate doesn’t slow until you actually check the message. This apnea could come with serious consequences, like lack of oxygen in your body that could lead to other serious issues. The next symptom, poor sense of time, is when time becomes distorted to us. For example, when we spend hours looking through our email inboxes, even though it only feels like a few minutes. The next symptom is loss of social breadth, which means we tend to build relationships with people who share similar views. By doing this, we eliminate the social inputs that bring us news we disagree with. This then leads to the overconsumption of specialized knowledge. The fourth symptom is distorted sense of reality. This happens when people are ignorant when looking at information. Information ignorance can lead to picking up a bias on something, which means sacrificing something for it, like time or money, and then becoming invested into that idea.

Absence in Presence

The last, and in my opinion most relevant symptom is attention fatigue. This fatigue happens when we give in to the temptation of every distraction that comes across our eyeballs. We are constantly interrupted by Facebook, Twitter, and text message notifications that distracts us from personal conversations and face-to-face interactions. I thought this symptom in particular was very relatable to what we have been learning in class. One reading I thought that really connected to this symptom was the Young and Digital except by Watkins. In this, Watkins argues that all technological gain produces a sense of loss too; for example, the creation of the Internet has led to the loss in social skills for many kids. Watkins also presents the theory of “absence-in-presence” which is the act of being present in body but not in spirit. In my opinion, this “absence-in-presence” is connected to attention fatigue. Because we are always searching for new, relevant information, whether it be on our phones or computers, we are constantly “absent” from the real world, and our attention is constantly losing cognitive energy because we are always distracted.

Data Literacy

Now that you aware of the symptoms of information consumption, it is important to master the skill of data literacy. Data literacy is this is the ability to process, sort, and filter vast quantities of information (Johnson, 81). It involves four components: searching, filtering, creating, and synthesis. The first step, searching, is defined as the ability to use a search engines’ advanced techniques and the ability to find data outside a search

h engine. The second step is filtering, which is the ability to determine a message’s, quality, credibility, and point of view while considering potential effects or consequences of the messages (Johnson, 81). The third step is creation, or the ability to communicate and exchange information with others (Johnson, 83). To “create”, one must know how to publish their information as well as take feedback. The final step of data literacy is synthesis. After we receive feedback on information, it is important to use this feedback to make your ideas better.  These data literacy skills take practice, but it is important that we constantly attempt to use them in order to get better at choosing our information.

The Digital Disconnect

This concept and skills of data literacy is especially important due to the inaccurate data that is out there today. For example, in his book Digital Disconnect, McChesney argues that communication hindered by the “marriage” between capitalism and Internet. He talks about the flaws of journalism in particular, and how what society sees as credible information may not be as accurate as we think. McChesney says that journalism has three parts: it must provide an account of people in power, it must have a plausible method to separate truth from lies, it must regard information needs of individuals as legitimate, and it must provide range of informed opinions on most important issues (McChesney). However, due to things like government involvement, and profit driven news media firms, some of this “credible” information is distorted. McChesney argues that today, policies will be made by elites and self-interested commercial interests, unless there is organized popular intervention. Because of this damage to news media than to entertainment media, it is necessary that society learns the skills of “data literacy” as Johnson has explained them. If we filter this inaccurate news information better, we will have a more balanced and credible knowledge background.

How to Consume

Now that you have learned the symptoms of information overconsumption, and the skills to select data, you are ready to master “how to consume”. Johnson specifies frameworks that will help teach you “how to consume”. These frameworks include consuming consciously, diversity, and balance. Consume consciously means keeping your information diet clean. For example, measuring your information intake is always helpful. You can do this by making an information schedule to help be more productive: list what times you are going to watch the news, look at emails, or enjoy media entertainment. A healthy information diet means seeking out diversity, both in topic area and in perspective. If we challenge our beliefs, we can make our ideas even better and learn more about the world as a whole. By doing this, we avoid “loss of social breadth”. Lastly, if we want a healthy information diet, we must have balance. This means for the amount of time we spend consuming things we believe in, we should spend twice as much time seeking information from sources that disagree with you (Johnson, 115).