This resonates, and one piece worth adding: the diet model treats information overwhelm as a quantity problem, but what people are actually metabolizing is dysregulation. A nervous system in chronic activation can't evaluate sources well no matter how disciplined the consumption. The village works partly because co-regulation does what solo filtering can't. Thinking with someone you trust isn't just intellectual. It settles the body enough to think clearly in the first place. Capacity, not just curation.
Hana, I 2nd the praise above. You, Drey, n Huey r my faves in substack .
That’s some good company ! I wish your commentary were a mandatory read the 2nd year of high school.
It would save a lot of young people from mistakes they will make because of not understanding the present systems in place designed to mislead ( corrupt ) them to put it mildly !
Very interesting article and recommendations. I especially like the proposed solution of the commons as the alternative to the algorithm. The algorithm is not our friend, it is a serious foe. As a serious foe, it needs a serious strategy to repel it.
Hmm. So you favor checking with knowledgeable acquaintances about information that is outside your expertise. That is a great idea. How should we handle the input and analysis of AI? How does their output or intermediation affect the village information model?
As an aside, I do favor random scrolling and rabbit holes, you never know what you’ll find. For example, my excellent poem, “No, rickety toilet, no!” is buried among boring notes and comments I write that no one reads. But it should win some kind of award, I believe.
Hana, I just discovered your Substack account due to reading one of your articles linked on a blog I read regularly. Your writings and insights are fascinating! I can feel my brain expanding! (Better to expand than to explode...) In any event, you offer much food for thought, and I hope to implement some of your suggestions for navigating my online life. Thank you!
This is so spot-on. It reminds me if how information was preserved in medieval times by communities of monks and scholars who not only copied books but interacted with them. That living element is the difference between information that is preserved and information that is embalmed. I am a huge fan of any kind of learning and information sharing in any flavor of communal setting.
This is so interesting because the information diet culture, as you've described it, suffers from the same issue as food diet culture--focusing on individuals, not systems. Blame rather relief. Community rather than isolation.
A 'diet' consists of whatever you eat, whether it is healthy or unhealthy, right for your needs, or not. It's not what you are relating it to here - restricting what your diet consists of. A healthy diet doesn't restrict anything, just requires intention, variety, and being aware of portion sizes. In fact, learning to eat healthier is less likely to involve restricting foods, but opening up to more variety. And, it should be said, that healthy eating is phrased as an individual responsibility, but it is absolutely a systemic responsibility - if people can't afford better food, if big food companies are allowed to advertise and bombard us with choices in the supermarkets, it makes eating healthier far more difficult, as you're actively trying to fight the system we live in.
In this way, the information diet is absolutely a great metaphor (and we have to remember that it doesn't just refer to internet consumption, but all media and knowledge consumption - from politicians, reporters, friends, family,etc), so I disagree that the metaphor breaks down because it absolutely is a systemic problem that's posed as an individual responsibility, where the system we live in is designed to make it as difficult as possible to consume in a healthy way.
In the US at least, we used to have the germ of something like a village commons for news and information -- in the form of public radio and television, funded partially via Federal budget and partially via individual donations, corporate and foundation grants, and so on. It's probably not going to happen in my lifetime, but I'd love to see that model expanded to include an Internet-based village commons which would funnel state and federal funding into the support of all the "legitimate" sources of curated content. (It's ridiculous that Wikipedia and the Internet Archive, for instance, have to solicit contributions rather than be welcomed with open arms as publicly-supported institutions.)
And while I'm dreaming dreams, I also wouldn't mind if we could agree on something like a (digital and other) equivalent of universal basic income -- universal basic INFORMATION -- or the "recommended daily allowance" of nutrients.
I have no idea why this came into my inbox probably an algorithm embedded into Substack, but I am glad, it did, because for 55+ years or more its been an almost everyday need. At 74 I have been part of this media, professional, construction, lecturer, world, soaking up knowledge storing it on whatever system was flavour of the month, paper was and probably still is, the main repository, I use an A5 Rhodia spiral bound dot grid note pad, and my row of these is part of my library. But of late Obsidian has become my tool of choice, and the hash tag the card replacement. and a web page clip app a daily habit. I found a local copy of "The Information Diet" so await ebays delivery. But in the mean time I will read your other article with interest.
This resonates, and one piece worth adding: the diet model treats information overwhelm as a quantity problem, but what people are actually metabolizing is dysregulation. A nervous system in chronic activation can't evaluate sources well no matter how disciplined the consumption. The village works partly because co-regulation does what solo filtering can't. Thinking with someone you trust isn't just intellectual. It settles the body enough to think clearly in the first place. Capacity, not just curation.
Hana, I 2nd the praise above. You, Drey, n Huey r my faves in substack .
That’s some good company ! I wish your commentary were a mandatory read the 2nd year of high school.
It would save a lot of young people from mistakes they will make because of not understanding the present systems in place designed to mislead ( corrupt ) them to put it mildly !
Very interesting article and recommendations. I especially like the proposed solution of the commons as the alternative to the algorithm. The algorithm is not our friend, it is a serious foe. As a serious foe, it needs a serious strategy to repel it.
Hmm. So you favor checking with knowledgeable acquaintances about information that is outside your expertise. That is a great idea. How should we handle the input and analysis of AI? How does their output or intermediation affect the village information model?
As an aside, I do favor random scrolling and rabbit holes, you never know what you’ll find. For example, my excellent poem, “No, rickety toilet, no!” is buried among boring notes and comments I write that no one reads. But it should win some kind of award, I believe.
Hana, I just discovered your Substack account due to reading one of your articles linked on a blog I read regularly. Your writings and insights are fascinating! I can feel my brain expanding! (Better to expand than to explode...) In any event, you offer much food for thought, and I hope to implement some of your suggestions for navigating my online life. Thank you!
This is so spot-on. It reminds me if how information was preserved in medieval times by communities of monks and scholars who not only copied books but interacted with them. That living element is the difference between information that is preserved and information that is embalmed. I am a huge fan of any kind of learning and information sharing in any flavor of communal setting.
This is so interesting because the information diet culture, as you've described it, suffers from the same issue as food diet culture--focusing on individuals, not systems. Blame rather relief. Community rather than isolation.
A 'diet' consists of whatever you eat, whether it is healthy or unhealthy, right for your needs, or not. It's not what you are relating it to here - restricting what your diet consists of. A healthy diet doesn't restrict anything, just requires intention, variety, and being aware of portion sizes. In fact, learning to eat healthier is less likely to involve restricting foods, but opening up to more variety. And, it should be said, that healthy eating is phrased as an individual responsibility, but it is absolutely a systemic responsibility - if people can't afford better food, if big food companies are allowed to advertise and bombard us with choices in the supermarkets, it makes eating healthier far more difficult, as you're actively trying to fight the system we live in.
In this way, the information diet is absolutely a great metaphor (and we have to remember that it doesn't just refer to internet consumption, but all media and knowledge consumption - from politicians, reporters, friends, family,etc), so I disagree that the metaphor breaks down because it absolutely is a systemic problem that's posed as an individual responsibility, where the system we live in is designed to make it as difficult as possible to consume in a healthy way.
in 2020 I wrote an essay about what an information village might look like https://substack.com/@amybrunvand/note/c-251091231?r=3aadnk&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
In the US at least, we used to have the germ of something like a village commons for news and information -- in the form of public radio and television, funded partially via Federal budget and partially via individual donations, corporate and foundation grants, and so on. It's probably not going to happen in my lifetime, but I'd love to see that model expanded to include an Internet-based village commons which would funnel state and federal funding into the support of all the "legitimate" sources of curated content. (It's ridiculous that Wikipedia and the Internet Archive, for instance, have to solicit contributions rather than be welcomed with open arms as publicly-supported institutions.)
And while I'm dreaming dreams, I also wouldn't mind if we could agree on something like a (digital and other) equivalent of universal basic income -- universal basic INFORMATION -- or the "recommended daily allowance" of nutrients.
Thank you for bringing all this up, Hana!
I have no idea why this came into my inbox probably an algorithm embedded into Substack, but I am glad, it did, because for 55+ years or more its been an almost everyday need. At 74 I have been part of this media, professional, construction, lecturer, world, soaking up knowledge storing it on whatever system was flavour of the month, paper was and probably still is, the main repository, I use an A5 Rhodia spiral bound dot grid note pad, and my row of these is part of my library. But of late Obsidian has become my tool of choice, and the hash tag the card replacement. and a web page clip app a daily habit. I found a local copy of "The Information Diet" so await ebays delivery. But in the mean time I will read your other article with interest.