Dispatch No. 12 - The Information Diet

We try to have fun on the internet for one minute and it's digital whiplash. To see the adorable live-action felt frog cooking miniature meals, you also have to swipe through all the world's traumas, real and imagined, from wildly different points of view. It's overstimulating, and there's no resolution or next step.

Clay Johnson coined 'information diet' in 2012, framing media overload as a design problem rooted in a consumption cycle not unlike junk food.

Thirteen years later, our responses to this problem have evolved. Beyond app timers and screen-time limits, we're getting offline and re-embracing third places.

How do our roles as designers and makers fit into that shift?
How do we create digital spaces that provide instead of deplete?
What does a healthy information diet look like in the products we build?
What does this mean for my own attention habits?

Without the screen between us, we tap into the inputs our cave brains love. Real-time reactions, facial expressions, human turns of phrase. Zoom offered a semblance of this, but never fully replaced it.

This resurgence of community and conversation feels hopeful. I’ve had a good streak of offline moments this week and realized how much I’d been craving them. It’s nice to metabolize information at human pace and let the real stuff settle.

Elsewhere

This interactive piece on 'dithering' (the digital processing of images via pixels) was a real treat. The story format is so inviting and fun; the creator has a few similar pieces on their website too.

Last but not least, you can watch the frog make his tiny pancakes here. :-)

See you next week.
-MG