The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Comsumption by Clay A. Johnson

Author:Clay A. Johnson [Johnson, Clay A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects
ISBN: 9781491933343
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Published: 2015-07-12T23:00:00+00:00

The Infovegan Way

In biology, the trophic pyramid is a simple construct we use to think about how energy flows through the food chain. In the food world, the people eating strictly at the bottom of the trophic pyramid are called vegans — and that’s exactly what we want to emulate with our information consumption. Building on that philosophy, I coined a term in 2010 — infoveganism — and started a blog called Infovegan.com to describe this lifestyle. Infovegans try to emulate the consumption habits and ethical habits of vegans in the world of information.

I’ll admit: it’s quite an intimidating term. A lot of people view veganism as an extreme diet, and for some, it triggers visceral reactions. Veganism is not without controversy. Even some food vegans take offense at the term, either angered at the co-opting of their name, or pointing out that the metaphor isn’t perfect: lots of vegan foods are highly processed.

If you can get past the baggage that the term has, infoveganism is a valid description of what we’re trying to do. Like a vegan diet, infoveganism connotes that there’s more to the choice of going on an information diet than seeking a healthy lifestyle. It’s also a moral decision.

At the heart of veganism is ethics. Vegans largely believe that animals, as living creatures, deserve basic moral consideration. Eating meat, they claim, has all kinds of moral implications: animal cruelty, high carbon consumption, and support of an industry without much concern for public health.

Agree with the vegans or not, you have to respect their stance. It captures perfectly what we’re trying to do here with an information diet: respect the content providers that consistently provide us with good info-nutrients by sticking only to those providers, and avoiding everything else.

Like veganism, infoveganism requires conscious consumption, planning, and to a greater extent, sharpened and honed skills. To be a vegan means you’ve got to consistently put yourself in situations where you can maintain your diet. You cannot simply agree to go to McDonald’s to grab lunch unless your diet is to consist entirely of french fries. You’ve got to know how to cook good-tasting vegan recipes, and know what kinds of food might be sneaking animal products in.

Being an infovegan means mastering data literacy — knowing where to get appropriate data, and knowing what to do with it, using the right kinds of tools. It means working to make sure you’re not put into situations where you’re forced to consume overly processed information.

It means that when you are consuming processed information, you consistently check the ingredients — if you’re reading news on a new medicare proposal in Congress, it means you want to take a look at the bill itself, not just what the Huffington Post has to say about it.

Finally, it means a moral choice for information consumption: opting out of a system that’s at least morally questionable, for a different way — a way that chooses to shun factory farmed information, politically charged affirmations — and choosing

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