The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Comsumption

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ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1491933399
Publisher ‏ : ‎ O’Reilly Media; 1st edition (August 25, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 162 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781491933398
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1491933398
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 0.38 x 8.98 inches

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Price: $24.99 - $20.37
(as of Sep 19,2024 04:34:52 UTC – Details)




ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1491933399
Publisher ‏ : ‎ O’Reilly Media; 1st edition (August 25, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 162 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781491933398
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1491933398
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 0.38 x 8.98 inches

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Customers find the book well-written, clear, and fast-paced. They also find the information interesting and thought-provoking.

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This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Information Obesity is an Epidemic
    There is a lot of information in the modern age, and much of it is accessible to anyone. While this can be an incredible thing, it also has problems. Many people complain of Information Overload, and people have a hard time dealing with their inboxes, social networks, news feeds, etc. If you have this problem, then Clay Johnson may have the solution for you. He calls it The Information Diet.According to Johnson, the problem isn’t too much data: it’s too much of the wrong data. He equates our information overconsumption to the obesity epidemic. Not all calories are equal, and neither are all information sources. He says that there is “no such thing as *information overload*”. No one is forcing us to consume the data, just as no one is forcing us to binge on McDonald’s and KFC.The Information Diet is laid out in three parts. The first section describes the problem, the second section describes how an information diet works, and the third is a call to action. In the first section, Johnson lays out just how bad our information consumption is. We binge on entertainment disguised as news(Fox News, MSNBC, The Huffington Post, and many, many others.) We hang out with people who share our views, whether it’s online or in person. We fall into the three traps of agnotology, epistemic closure, and filter failure.Briefly, agnotology is the phenomenon that causes people who are more informed about an issue to become more entrenched in their views. An epistemic closure is caused by depending on views from only your side (so conservatives can’t believe what liberals say, because if its liberal, it must be a lie, and vice versa. Johnson uses Climate change to describe this.) Most people are already familiar with Filter Failure: the problem caused by algorithms that pay attention to how we search and how we click, and respond accordingly by showing us more of the same at the expense of other voices.Obviously, this is just a brief description of the problem and Johnson goes into more detail. In part two, he presents a solution: The Information Diet. While I won’t give away his solution, it involves things like getting your news locally (but not from TV), going to original sources, learning better search techniques, using ad blocking software, and seeking balance. While I agree with much of what he says in this section, I do have a problem with ad-blocking software (there are good information sources that depend on ads to exist. Book Review blogs like The Rumpus, The Millions, HTMLGiant, and others couldn’t exist without ads.) I use ad-blocking software, but only for sites that use intrusive advertising (anything that prevents me from reading the content).The third section, Social Obesity, describes how people can work together to fix the problems with our information consumption. Johnson worked on the Howard Dean campaign, and on Obama’s social media campaign leading up to his election. He knows how grassroots (and fake grassroots) organizations really work, and how effective they can be. But we have to be aware, and we have to spread that awareness.Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. There’s a lot of important information here.

  2. Far too sensible for most people’s ‘common sense’
    The Information diet lays out a plan for adjusting the type of information ‘junk food’ we consume. Using a food diet analogy, Johnson lays out some good reasons why a better understanding of where our information comes from is important to our mental and physical health.His ideas are relatively simple to enact and require little more than a bit of discipline to apply (which perhaps is why most people will not follow up his recommendations!). He does not recommend ‘fasting’ (no information access) and does suggest that readers will be best placed by understanding the way in which fast info companies fire the sugar hits at you to get you and keep you hooked.It is an awakener for those who think that consuming information loaded with rubbish TV, trashy mags and dubious web content is okay for their kids or themselves. Sadly the audience who may be in the biggest need will be unlikely to be the ones who read this book and benefit from the ideas it contains – it is perhaps too sensible for the junk information diets of ‘common sense’.

  3. Good info, questionable diet
    Clay Johnson’s “Information Diet” is a generally well-written book, interesting and with a sense of humor. It takes on an important topic with increasingly broad relevance. As other reviewers have noted, the core analogy, which links how we consume information to how we eat, works pretty well. Johnson gets the book’s main points across in ways that are straightforward and compelling. The first half is a quick-reading tour that covers the reasons we’re attracted to information and how we process it. If that was the sole purpose, then mission accomplished and good job!But Johnson also wants to help us be healthier info consumers. It’s the second half of the book – the “diet” part – that could be tighter. In general, The Information Diet doesn’t offer too much advance over an older book: “Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut.” And what is new sometimes comes off as too personalized to the author’s own experiences. One suggestion, to work on-line in increments of 5 to 20 minutes and then take breaks, even contradicts some of the leading insights from productivity gurus. A second issue is that Johnson focuses mainly on one part of the problem: time we spend taking in “junky” information. Sticking with the food analogy, he jokes that people don’t have a problem eating too many vegetables. But for me and other folks, there CAN be too many veggies on-line – too much info that seems relevant and useful. The book misses a chance to offer insight on how to make smarter info choices here.Overall, a good reference on the topic but jury is still out on whether the diet works.

  4. Generell beinhaltet dieses Buch ein paar nette Ideen, wie man mit dem Medien-Overkill umgehen kann. Allerdings gibt es hier nichts bahnbrechendes. Jeder der sich schon mal mit Selbstorganisation oder Zeitmanagement beschäftigt hat, kennt ähnliche Ideen. Die Beispiele sind in der Tat stark an den amerikanischen Markt ausgerichtet. Jedoch könnte man amerikanische Fernseh-Sender durch private deutsche Sender ersetzen, und dann ergeben die Beispiele wieder Sinn.Wichtigste Erkenntnisse aus dem Buch für mich: 1. Weniger Informationen konsumieren, und dafür lieber selber Informationen fabrizieren. 2. Wenn schon Informationen konsumieren, dann bitte möglichst aus erster Hand und nicht aus dritter Hand.

  5. Although the idea and content is interesting the author focuses only what is happening in the US. If you are not living in the US, you will loose your interest pretty fast. That is a pitty as the topic might be handled radically different throughout the worlds information companies and governments.

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