Information Diet Quotes

It’s never been so easy to pretend to know so much without actually knowing anything. We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. […] What matters to us, awash in petabytes of data, is not necessarily having actually consumed this content firsthand but simply knowing that it exists — and having a position on it, being able to engage in the chatter *about* it. We come perilously close to performing a pastiche of knowledgeability that is really a new model of know-nothingness.

Sometimes you need to go on a low-information diet.

One newspaper a day ought to be enough for anyone who still prefers to retain a little mental balance.

Information, if viewed from the point of view of food, is never a production issue. ... It's a consumption issue, and we have to start thinking about how we create diets [and] exercise.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

[W]e spend so much time staring at our phones and screens, texting and tweeting about how busy we are, we no longer have the time to consume any primary material. We rely instead on the casual observations of our “friends” or the people we “follow” […].

We are not the "free thinkers" we think we are. What we eat unavoidably impacts our physiology; the information we consume inevitably affects our opinions and perspectives. You cannot eat junk food with impunity; you cannot consume information without consequences.

The piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent...The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd.

The food that enters the mind must be watched as closely as the food that enters the body.

Anyone anywhere - as long as you live in a country that does not censor the Internet - can now read this newspaper. But like diners passing up a healthy salad for an artery-clogging cheeseburger, many information consumers are instead digesting junk news.

I don't read a lot of magazines, but when I'm traveling, I'll pick up a copy of 'Vanity Fair' to read on the plane - it's like a full meal! The articles are so good, especially the crime stories. Browsing the Web is more like snacking - but I live on snacks.

The information diet of a senior campaign staffer is insane. We were all addicted to our chosen email delivery devices and were aggressively tethered to them. It made sense and wasn't an issue during the campaign because of the importance of the situation. However, once the campaign was over and we were successful, the information flow dried up.

Just as modern man consumes both too many calories and calories of no nutritional value, information workers eat data both in excess and from the wrong sources.