The information diet

Wandering through today’s magazine shops you can see advices for keeping a diet almost everywhere. Low-Fat Diet, Mediterranean Diet, Paleo Diet, DASH Diet, Fat-Burning Diet, ... this list seems to be endless and each diet promises a better, healthier life with less weight. Everyone seems to pursuit to the perfect body and attempts not to eat too much. Instead of eating sugar, fat and instant meals people want to eat healthy food as vegetables, fruits and nuts. Summarizing it can be said that there exists a trend today towards controlling the stuff people eat to gain a healthier and slender body.

But what about transferring this food diet to information diet? Today almost everyone has its own mobile phone, its own laptop and its own tablet. And almost everyone is part of the social media as Twitter, Facebook, Whats App, Instagram and so on. This means nowadays people are not only receiving information on the traditional way as in newspapers, posters and magazines, but also on their technical devices and through their social media. From the first minute of the day until going to bed people receive continuously information about everything: What is happening around the world, events taking place in their home city, what their so called “friends” are doing and sharing on social media, statements of people they do not even know and so on. This explosion of information affects people without any control as everyone is sharing and consuming this information without thinking twice.

But what happens when you consider information as food? Just imagine that each kilobyte of information is equivalent to one kilocalorie and the daily requirement of information is equivalent to the daily requirement of food. Similar to the absorption capacity of someone’s body the absorption capacity of someone’s brain is limited to a certain amount as well. Every kilobyte ingesting over the daily requirement leads to “overweight”, in the case of information called “overload”. And similar to the negative impact of the additionally weight on a body, the overload information has a negative impact on our brain. But there is not only the issue of overload but also the issue of quality. The trend of eating healthier food should also be transferred to consuming more qualitative information. And in the same way of controlling food people should start controlling information.

Since food diets are, if the person suffers from overweight, healthy for the body, information diets have to be considered as healthy as well. Many people have already realized this new issue of overload and pursuit to a healthier and controlled form of information. In 2012 even a book was released by Clay Johnson to create awareness of people for the fact of information overload and the solution of a healthy information diet. It is called “The information diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption” and it became a national bestseller in America very fast. This event shows that people start thinking about the continuous flood of information and becoming aware of the fact that this can lead to an overload in the same way as too many calories lead to overweight.

Development of information through the last decades

The way information are transmitted or received changed in the last few decades dramatically.

Let us go back in time. During the Middle Ages the only opportunity to communicate over a longer distances was by carrier pigeon or ambassador. If an ambassador had to deliver an important message from his lord to another one, it was very likely that he had to ride several days or weeks. Of course the reply needed the same time until it reached its principal. This was a very uncomfortable and time-consuming way, especially for the ambassador, who did not know if he would return alive or not. The transport media changed over time, but regardless of whether it were bottle messages, fire or light signals or simple letters, the desire to a fast or even instant information transfer was growing and growing. As different as all of these techniques of information provision are, they have one thing in common. They were mainly used by the military, which means that they transmitted important messages. The effort was simply too high as it would be sensible using them for banal information or even advertisement.

A benchmark in information transfer was the invention of television. Obviously, it was a huge step forward as compared with the information transfer by a riding ambassador or carrier pigeon. The transfer medium was not the only thing, which was changed, though. Also the type of information, which was transmitted, differs a lot. The television is used by the industry for advertising, showing how great their products are. Spectators are not really able to choose what they want to watch, because the industry already had made this decision for them.

The next remarkable invention was the Internet. It connected the world and suddenly information being available in abundance. Today it just needs one click to get informed about the latest news. Social networks like Facebook are feeding you with a lot of information. As a user you have no chance but to see all this well placed advertisements. This leads to the fact that many of the younger generation is not thinking about of what kind for information they get in touch with, they just inhale all of them.

All in all, you had a major transformation of the way how information were transmitted and of the content of these information, from the transfer of important messages between a small group of people to manipulating of the population through mass media. Nowadays people care more about the type of food they eat, than what for information they receive.

The Diet Metaphor and its limits

Gathering information can be compared to eating food. This connection was mentioned before but more or less left aside. Now hearing about this comparison first, one might understand a glimpse of all aspects that are actually included in this methaphor. In order to make it a little more accessible, some interesting aspects will be pointed out and it will be shown to what extent the comparison actually makes sense and by doing so paragraph offers some information to think about.

Firstly some connections to the history of food and information. A long time back from now both goods were quite rare and therefore expensive. Only people from upper social classes could afford to eat as much as they wanted to and more. Similarly only people from higher social backgrounds were able to gather information since lower social classes were not able to read or write or simply did not have time to do so. In those days keeping a healthy diet regarding food as well as information was reserved for rich walks of life and limited due to availability. Nowadays though in consequence of industrialization food is not only disposable but also cheap (cf. Johnson, 2011, p.10). In the same way educational expansion ensured nearly everyone receives at least a basic education, thus is able to cumulate information. More importantly mass media and the internet arrived in people’s everyday lives which ensures data and information being available almost everywhere and at all times.
Another aspect is the human’s craving for things that are bad for us. Regarding food that might be sweets or junk food, in terms of information that might be entertaining, easily- understandable and not conformation-bias-provoking contributions. Information which confirm what we already know and reinforce our opinion do please us but contain the risk of becoming ignorant at the same time (cf. Johnson, 2011, p.5). Slowly sweets as well as ‘unhealthy’ information will affect our life. One main difference which is ought to be pointed out is that one’s diet is a very personal choice which solely affects one’s health whereas a poor information diet has effects on one’s world view and political opinion. Against this backdrop the importance of conscious information intake as well as the limits of the metaphor become apparent.

Another issue is to raise awareness for is adequate nutrition and balanced reporting. One main well-known fact about eating healthily is that one is supposed to eat different kinds of food in order to obtain all vitamins which are needed for the body to work as good as it can. Transferred to information it means that complicated newspaper articles, interesting reports and entertaining shows can and should be taken in well-balanced. Being aware of what someone is eating or gathering already helps a lot when it comes to being healthy.

Advantages of Having Unlimited Access to Fast Information

Using different sources of information nearly every single day, we have to consider both the positive as well as the negative aspects of unlimited access to fast information.

First of all, one of the most obvious advantages is that getting access to fast information is getting easier and faster. They are available all the time and everywhere, because we live in a generation where most of the people have smartphones, tablets or other portable devices with internet access. This makes it possible for them to get relevant information without much effort. In addition to that you get confronted with all sorts of information in form of, for example, billboards, advertisements and social media everywhere you go. Because you have access to fast information almost at any place, it enables you to do your research on the go, which clearly could be quite time saving for the majority. For instance, being a full time student can be very stressful and exhausting with all the tasks and its deadlines, let alone those who have one or more jobs on the side. Being able to go on the internet, which is considered the fastest source to all kinds of information, and do the research, allows those students to get their work done on time, since the internet is available everywhere regardless of the time. One aspect that contributes to the advantage is, indeed, having internet access everywhere. When talking about getting information, the first thing that comes to mind would be the internet. Nowadays searching for data with the World Wide Web is tremendously fast and easy. Because of that convenience other sources are being neglected. For the most part people do not tend to use the paper, watch the news or listen to the radio anymore. Being able to get information as fast as possible is one crucial quality for why people lean towards the internet instead of choosing the conventional ways. One can easily find everything imaginable with searching engines, such as Google, Yahoo, etc. within only seconds. The endless content spectrum of the internet is so broad, that anyone can find anything on the platform, which again, benefits the consumer’s time management and efficiency.

Disadvantages of Having Unlimited Access to Fast Information

Despite the advantages, a lot of problems can occur, when we have unlimited access to information.

One of the disadvantages is that you can get an overwhelming amount of information at once. The fact that everything comes unfiltered prolongs the process of selecting the most important and relevant information that is needed and makes it even harder to choose the right sources quickly. As a consequent there is an information overload. In order to find right sources it takes time to go through all the materials, which depicts a contradiction. It does not matter how fast one gets the information, a certain amount of extra time and effort on doing the research has to be invested. Furthermore, most of the information come for free nowadays, which possibly makes the users take them granted. This, then partially leads to ignorance of today’s society, since a significantly big number of people do not question the content nor do they do their own research on certain subjects that can be easily replicated by the media, as citizens tend to make their own conclusions and assumptions. When we talk about fast information, the media plays one big role and this way, most users give the media the power to influence the perception of the news, for example. As already mentioned, thoroughness appears to be a big issue to many groups of people, which the media is not an exception of. The media feels constant pressure to deliver information the fastest to the consumers. Due to the competition among the media, the lack of credibility of what they deliver is more likely to increase, because the time and effort they put into researching is at times not sufficing to give the audience detailed and good quality reports. From all this it follows that ultimately it leads to the interference of the consumer’s point of view, since coming across news or other kind information that are put into words differently by the media, could cause a misunderstanding of the real facts. Being able to understand and question the facts and information about today’s world is essential in order to continue one’s education, may it be business, politics or economics. Having the ability to absorb all information but then filtering the good from the nonsense is still not very common. Especially the young generation should be advised to be cautious about information overload. The reason being is that the capability of critical thinking will most likely suffer from all the convenience that comes with having too much information ‘thrown’ at the youth.

Side Effects of a poor information diet

Nowadays, we are constantly bombarded by information of all kinds. Some of it is useful, some is not, but one thing is sure: we can't or we shouldn't take all of it. That's why it is important to pay attention to the information we consume by making wise decisions about the “filters“ we use against the information bombardment we get every day. In other words we must pay attention to our information diet. But what happens when that diet is not been taking care of as it should and is becoming poor? Let's take a look at some of the side effects of a poor information diet.

As said before, on a daily basis we deal with lots of information coming from every imaginable way like television, radio, social media, books we read, adds on the street, conversations we hear while sitting in the bus, etc. The list could go on and on. Such great amount of information could lead to what is called Information Overload or Information Glut, which is characterized by the difficulty a person can have understanding something and making decisions due to the processing of too much information.

Although the problem of Information Overload has existed for many years, in recent years the problem has become more recognized and experienced and has been growing together with the rapid advances made in information and communication technology.

A clear example of the impact Information Overload can have is when it comes to decision making, because working with lots of information or a range of available options can become a problem. While trying to make the best decision based on a single factor or a smaller group of factors, processing lots of information will lead in most cases, to a sub-optimal decision, because at the end the variety of options acts as a distractor which will eventually turn into lack of focus on the goal itself.

Attempting to make a decision based on a wide range of factors will require more time than it normally would when making a decision based on less factors and it will also compromise in most cases, the quality of the decisions we make.

Information processing in the brain starts with input from the sensory organs, which transform physical stimuli such as touch, sounds, smells, or images into electrochemical signals. The sensory information is repeatedly transformed by the algorithms of the brain to then be able to process in a more detailed manner. Once the information processing reaches a specific degree, an attention filter decides how important the signal is and which cognitive processes it should be made.

In order for the brain to actually start to work with the information processed previously. Information must first be stored. There are multiple types of memory, including sensory, working, and long-term memory. The first step of this part of the process is information encoding. There are types of encoding specific to each type of sensory stimuli. For example, sound inputs can be encoded phonemically, making reference to what the sound of a word is like. Once information is stored, it must be maintained, so they turn into memories. Memories eventually must be restored from storage. Remembering past events is a process of recalling the details the brain chose as significant.

Knowing this, it's no wonder that processing big amounts of unneeded information is a very hard task for our brains and it's something that eventually could trigger feelings of confusion, tension, anxiety and fear. Therefore, if possible, we should do the best we can to pay attention to the information we expose ourselves to, so that we can have the best information possible, instead of lots of information that will only cause a “traffic jam“ in our brains.

Conclusion

In summary the topic of "Information Overload" and "Information Diet" is new, up-to-date and absolutely necessary. Information influence people's opinions and actions, for this reason it needs to be discussed more in public.

In former times simple communication over large distances made a high effort. The ambassadors had to use traditional and contemporary means of transportation to convey e.g. a letter personally. The bad infrastructure made it even more difficult. Therefore only the most relevant information were transmitted. One major factor for the improvement of communication transfer was the military. It has always used and developed the up-to-date technology. Moreover the military had a huge impact on the internet. With its help they could overbear large distances and geographical barriers.
Caused by the numerous possibilities of getting information nowadays, including the new technologies, new media and new social networks, people have to overthink their commerce with it. In former times information was a precious and seldom good. Only the upper class could afford it. Nowadays everybody gets access to almost every information one needs, and even much more. Wanted or not wanted. As a consequence people consume the information with less and less care. The pure message does often not reach the heart of the recepient anymore.

Therefore information needs to be categorized into different quality levels, like food can be divided in healthy food and junk food. Everybody has to value oneself what is high quality information. A mixture of several sources is useful. Nevertheless looking for authentic sources costs time. Nowadays they do not have to wait for information anymore. On the one hand this is an advantage, so they can do their personal research on their way to the next place. On the other hand the media are under pressure to deliver new information really quickly. Consequently the time for a research is very short and the reliability of their information declines.

Doing a strictly information diet can be useful, but on the long run the individual point of view gets one-sided. Like in any other diet, a too extreme one has a negative impact. Moreover the decision-making process gets influenced by it. Furthermore it not may be forgotten, that the brain has to process every single information. This is why Information overload leads to negative feelings like confusion, tension, anxiety and fear.

For those reasons this topic has to be discussed more often in public. An information diet can support the health of everybody, like every traditional diet can increase health. In consequence it is just logical to do an information diet at least sometimes for supporting the own health and staying happy.

References

• Johnson, Clay (2011): The information diet: A case for Conscious Consumption. O’Reilly Media, Inc. Sebastopol, California.