Go on a High-Information Diet
Everywhere you turn these days people are complaining about too much information. The phrase “information overload” gets more than 1.5 million hits on Google. (This post makes it one more!) Everyone seems to think that if they could just reduce the flow of information into their lives, everything would be all better. They could finally relax and take a minute to catch up.
My advice is the opposite: you don’t need less information, you need more information. What you need less of is input — all the crap that flows at you masquerading as information.
Listen: in order to be information, an input must make you better informed. Frankly, inputs that meet that criteria are so comparatively rare next to the reality TV, junk mail, forwarded virus warnings, and local news programs that fill our lives, you’d be a fool to turn your back on them. By definition, you can’t have too much information; when an input, no matter how good, ceases to inform you, it is no longer information.
Though his heart’s in the right place, Tim Ferriss’ idea of a “low-information diet” is a step entirely in the wrong direction (to be fair, the steps he advocates aren’t really a low-information diet; it’s the name that’s misleading). You don’t need less information — if anything, you need more. What you need less of are the multiple (and multiplying) inputs in your life that contain no information at all, the equivalent of a diet high in fat and high-fructose corn syrup without any protein or fiber.
Ferriss knows this. Despite the name “low-information diet”, he has selected a very controlled set of inputs to allow into his life, each carefully chosen to maximize the flow of information and minimize the crap.
A nation of the uninformed
You probably think you’re pretty well-informed. Within your very narrow field of specialization, you probably are. But outside of your own little niche, are you really very well-informed? Have you taken in any information about science, history, art, literature, economics, politics, world culture, geography, foreign languages, or any other aspect of the world around you since high school? Or do you shy away from real information, preferring the “infotainment” of 24-hour news networks, 4-color national newspapers, tabloids, afternoon talk shows, and movies of the week?
You’d be in good company. Research shows that the vast majority of Americans didn’t read a single book last year — and most haven’t read a book by choice since graduating high school or college. Americans are painfully unaware of the details of even the largest events in our lives, with more Americans still believing Iraqis attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 — and being unable to find Iraq on a world map. And forget about stories that affect us less directly, like the genocide in Darfur! We are a nation of people who constantly react to the various inputs in our lives in the absence of information.
Instead, we subsist on a low-information diet of “comfort food” — channels of communication that serve little purpose other than to reassure us that we are still connected. Let me give you an example: parents who choose not to allow their children to watch TV are often criticized by people who worry that, without the ability to watch TV, the kids will not be able to take part in discussions about pop culture with their peers. It’s not just kids, either — time was when grown-ups, too, made sure to see “Must-See TV” like Seinfeld so they wouldn’t feel left out around the water-cooler the next day.
There’s a place in a healthy culture for this, of course. Anthropologists even have a name for it: the “phatic function” of language. The archetype of phatic communication is when you’re walking down the hall and see someone you know coming in the other direction. As you pass, one of you says “How ya doing?” and the other replies “Good, you?” No actual information has been exchanged — neither of you actually knows anything about the other person’s mental, physical, or emotional condition — but you’ve “pinged” each other, assuring yourselves that the channel of communication remains open.
This is important, since we humans are intensely social creatures. But when more and more of our input channels are this kind of “comfort food”, little real information can occur.
The Input Test
Just as you read the side of boxes to determine whether the food you buy is any good for you, I want to suggest you look at the “nutrition information” on your inputs and see if they contain any actual information. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this input making me better informed? If yes, you’re good to go. If no, then;
- Is there any entertainment or social value I receive from this input? If no, delete the input. If yes, it may be worth keeping — we need to be entertained sometimes, and we need to stay in touch.
- Is the entertainment or social value worth the time and effort to maintain the input? Are you getting 30 minutes of good entertainment value from your 22 minutes plus commercials of sitcom watching? Is the email newsletter from your favorite charity worth the time to read and delete it? Weigh every input against the time it takes to process and see if, were it gone, your life wouldn’t be just as good or even better.
Apply the Input Test to your email newsletters, RSS feeds, TV selections, magazine subscriptions, podcasts, and so on. Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of keeping something around in case someday in the future something important comes down the tube! There’s no piece of information so important that it can only be found amid a heaping mountain of crap — and so rare that you won’t find out about it otherwise.
Here are a few more tips in closing:
- Avoid anything billed as “infotainment”. Infotainment, that bastard child of the mass media’s onanistic self-importance, is supposed to be information combined with entertainment; far more often, it’s neither.
- If you find yourself nodding enthusiastically in agreement with everything someone says — even me! — chances are you are not being informed.
- Turn off your TV. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen…)
- Shoot your TV. 550,000 Elvises can’t be wrong.
- One in, two out. Don’t add another RSS feed without deleting two. (But not this one!) Don’t subscribe to an email list unless you first unsubscribe from two. And so on.
- Have goals. Make sure every input in your life has a purpose — and delete it when it no longer serves that purpose. You might subscribe to a magazine to get a free book bag — fine. If the goal has been met, go ahead and throw out the magazine — don’t feel obligated to maintain an input once it’s achieved its purpose.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
Hanna says on March 19th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Great article Dustin, I apply this thinking to my RSS feed these days, though previously I’ve collected everything that looks interesting there and then had to take the time to browse through it all. Now I just add the once I think I need. Like lifehack! ;-)
Chris says on March 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I absolutely agree, with a caveat. The “low-information diet” is really a misplaced effort with a catchy title: they are scratching the surface of “more isn’t better, better is better”. More information just to have it, isn’t productive per se.
But more information that you need, and being exposed to information beyond your normal sphere of inputs can be exceptional.
One must have a good system in place to acquire the right information. Google Reader is a major tool for me. I can skip through “noise” rather quickly by skipping a story. I “star” an item if upon 8 seconds of perusing it is worth reading. And then I follow up later in the day with an actual read of the content (or as time permits).
Information also needs a purpose to become knowledge.
Tea Packaging says on March 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I would venture that the issue may not be too much or too little information, but the relevance and quality that that information has to your needs. I find I can read productivity blogs or liberal political forums for hours, and yet the political forum gives me little useful information except how frustratingly small-minded humanity can be!
I now try to get my political news from basic sources but with less redundant information (30 minutes of NPR and a scan of NYT headlines does wonders for this)
Alas, the productivity blogs do still capture my time, hopefully for the better!
Henry Lewkowicz says on March 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Indeed, since when less information is better then more information?
The fact that Google brings a huge list of links to follow can be an advantage but only if you have some tools that will help to rapidly summarize the essential content
As you write, the key in dealing with volumes of data is to be able to select smartly what in fact is concrete and useful versus fluff. One of the technologies that may help is automatic text summarization. It speed-up reading by condensing web pages, emails and documents into keywords and summaries presented in context. By pointing to the most important content, it allows the reader to make quick determinations if they want to read the full text.
I am involved in developing such a tool. Context Organizer summarizes web pages and Google search results giving the user an instant overview of the key ideas.
If you were interested to learn more please contact me or better download Context Organizer from Context Discovery and try it out. (from Context Discovery Inc). Any comments will be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Henry
Ivan says on March 19th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I was thinking about this the other day, as I was re-reading Ferris’s articles. I agree with your article more than I do with his, in that I believe the human mind is capable of using a lot more information than is commonly believed. I guess that I enjoy learning about everything, even when it isn’t immediately useful, as Ferris says. Of course, some sources I feel can actually make you dumber, like most reality shows. But that’s a whole other topic.
Mike says on March 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
“Turn off your TV. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen…)”
Last year I completely cut TV out of my life - except for Doctor Who (love that show), and I can say I am much better from it. I can no longer talk about TV at school, but most of what people watch is rubbish anyway, so I don’t really care.
Joel says on March 19th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Only one I don’t agree with is the blanket one in/two out rule. That makes the assumption that the reader isn’t already filtering content. Sure, I have a lot of RSS feeds, but other than the pure entertainment ones there aren’t any that don’t bring in useful information on a regular basis. I give them about a week, and if nothing worthwhile comes through they get dumped. I fond that system works a lot better than arbitrarily dumping when I want to add.
sterling | bizlift says on March 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Thanks for pointing out the difference between inputs & information.
The headline took me by surprise so I had to click through.
sterling | bizlift says on March 19th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
The headline took me by surprise so I had to click through.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between inputs & information.
As for TV, I started using NetFlix on-demand to watch a series I like. No commercials and you watch at your convenience. Don’t even have to schedule a tivo.
Brandon says on March 19th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Interesting on several levels. Another interesting level is whomever is reading this comment.
I found myself nodding enthusiastically in a agreement for much of the article (once I wrapped my head around the difference between high and low information in conjunction with the different definition of information.
It seems that culturally we read and use the word “information” as ‘material from a medium’ rather than as ’selected beneficial material from a medium.’
I found it humorous that after agreeing, considering, and agreeing some more I came to the line of “…even me! — chances are you are not being informed…” I stopped and thought, he’s right. This whole article gives me no benefit as I already agree with it’s content and I’ve just spent 3 minutes reading it that I could have used to find something useful.
As someone who hasn’t owned a television for a year and a half, I can honestly say I never realized how pathetic it is of an information or entertainment source. When I visit my parents, they watch a lot of Discovery Channel. I’ll sit and watch Mythbusters or the various other shows on there that provoke thought, but I never really do anything with it. I got rid of the TV largely because I was coming out of a personal depression and saw the local/national news as a key trigger in keeping me down. The commercials are even worse because I can’t afford to buy a lot of what is advertised, and what I can buy, for the most part I don’t need! Yet, they are there because millions of others who do not need a product buy it because of the commercial. So not only are they uninformed, they are spending their money while going broke.
The last interesting thing is that I don’t know if anyone could be informed by my writing above. I know I am, because I formulated and finished a thought out of it, but for the reader, can something be taken away?
Great post!
Fritters says on March 19th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Can we get a source on the “most Americans didn’t read a book last year” data? I’d like to investigate how accurate this is, it certainly doesn’t apply to anyone I know.
Samuel says on March 20th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Interesting article Dustin and i must say its very true, i’m caught by t tag
“Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of keeping something around in case someday in the future something important comes down the tube!”
i am taking this out for my today’s profile header…hope you wont mind.
It applies a lot to techies like me, who actually do this ‘info piling’ and land up as an ‘info collector’.
Dustin Wax says on March 20th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Fritters: It comes from an NEA (Nat’l Endowment for the Arts) study that was pretty widely reported either earlier this year or towards the end of last year. In the last couple days, another study came out that put the figure at well under half not reading a book last year (though it was worded differently), so the NEA study may well have asked about novels, not books as a whole — non-fiction outsells fiction by a pretty wide margin.
Ayn says on March 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Another great article! I like the comment which finishes with: “The last interesting thing is that I don’t know if anyone could be informed by my writing above. I know I am, because I formulated and finished a thought out of it, but for the reader, can something be taken away?”
Ironically, this “last interesting thing” was the most useful/informative. Reminds me of that quotation which goes along the lines of: “When I want to read an interesting book, I find I have to write one.” (Now if I hadn’t read the professor’s article on perfectionism, I’d have tried to track down the author, source, page reference etc.)
Ben Overmyer says on March 25th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Excellent article, Dustin.
Here’s a challenge for you in line with it:
Acquire and read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, with notes about parts you found particularly relevant to yourself. You have two weeks. Go.
AZ of Best FeatherBeds says on March 27th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I think u are absolutely right, information overload is in fact disturbing productivity of people very much and i have been a victim of it. Reducing feeds for my rss reader is helping me very much.
foods to lower cholesterol says on August 27th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Interesting post. Thanks for sharing this informative article.
Your industry information guide says on January 23rd, 2009 at 12:57 am
Informational overload is any day much better than non availability of information. All you need to do is being more specific about your requirements and choose the right kind of information and leave the other stuff…
Yvette says on February 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 am
I haven’t had a TV in 12 years and don’t miss it in the slightest. We used to get the newspaper delivered, but found we never had the time to read it. Instead I now read it on the web, but so much of it is still a time-waster. I’d like to stop reading all the junk there too.