Several years back the brilliant Faris Yakob wrote a triumvirate of posts making the case for a more intentional media diet (post one, two and three). He captured this in the pyramid visual above. The premise was that any content where ideology leads to falsehood (at the top of the pyramid) is simply not good for us and we should avoid it at all costs. Going down the pyramid, we should limit heavy social media use, ‘doomscrolling’ and rolling news since, in the age of the algorithm, this too can reduce our mood and make us angry or anxious. The bottom three layers, where we are making more intentional choices about which media we consume and what inputs we are seeking form a much healthier media diet and this is where we should prioritise the bulk of our time.
When we consume so much media (over 12 hours a day) it’s a good idea, wrote Faris, to be mindful about getting a balanced media diet in the same way that we are told to be mindful about balancing our food diet. We are what we eat, and we are the media that we consume. Attention is finite, time is finite, and yet content is everywhere, and we naturally hunger for ideas and information.
At the heart of what Faris is saying, is that active media is more satisfying than passive media, and intentional consumption is more fulfilling (and better for us) than algorithmically curated content streams which serve us a never ending feed of things that are designed to get our attention. As an example, TikTok users spend an average of almost an hour a day on the platform and open up the app an average of 14 times daily, which works out at an estimated range of between 140 to 224 videos viewed daily. The way that we consume intentional media is different from the way we engage with algorithmically curated feeds that are specifically designed to draw us in. This is not to say that we should all abandon TikTok and other feeds immediately, but simply that we should think more carefully about the balance of inputs we are choosing. Spending three hours reading a book that we’ve selected or programmes that we’re interested leaves us feeling better than spending three hours aimlessly scrolling social media.
Faris wrote a great book on attention, and I was reminded of his exceptional thinking about this topic through the wonderful conversation between him and Adam Morgan on a recent episode of Adam’s ‘Let Make This More Interesting’ podcast (Apple, Acast) – strong recommend.
There has been a number of broader things swirling around my head lately related to how technology is changing the way that we think, the hidden impact of changes in media consumption, and whether we are increasingly defined by what we pay attention to. There was the quite staggering data points in that FT piece that I shared last week about the growing struggle for people to concentrate, and the apparent broad decline we seem to be seeing in verbal and numerical reasoning capabilities (short video version here). There was the Kirby Ferguson video for the NY Times talking about how tech hegemony has produced cultural hegemony and the issues created by algorithms that make it harder to discover niche culture. And then there’s the steady rise in loneliness (particularly amongst the young), and the marked decline in people hanging out together (particularly amongst the young).
Image source
Many of these trends have accelerated since around 2010 leading many to believe that our phones and the way that we use them is having a significant impact on how we relate to each other, how we live, and how we feel. The reality is likely to be far more complex, and there’s no direct causal link that’s yet been proved. But there is something going on, and the importance of taking a more intentional approach in how we design systems of use and the application of technology is surely beyond dispute.
Faris’ pyramid was not about cutting out algorithmic feeds and passive media altogether (apart from the obviously toxic media of course). It was about establishing a balanced diet that involves more deliberate choices about how we give out our attention. As AI capability expands rapidly the impact of technology use on wellbeing becomes even more apposite and these intentional choices become more and more important. Research from OpenAI and MIT Media Lab released just a couple of weeks ago showed that both the AI model, and the way that users choose to use the model in the context of their personal circumstances can influence social and emotional outcomes.
As Piotr Bombol said recently, we are at something of a cognitive crossroads. He refers to the ‘jagged intelligence’ idea – AI’s uneven capabilities where it excels at some things but fails at others. Moravec’s paradox, a well known AI paradox that has been around since the 1980s, describes a counterintuitive aspect of AI development: tasks that humans find cognitively challenging (like playing chess or solving mathematical problems) are relatively easy for AI to replicate, while tasks that humans do effortlessly (navigating through space, walking, recognizing faces) are extremely difficult for AI to master. The acceleration of AI should be a call-to-action to dial up on the uniquely human attributes that AI will struggle to master for some time to come – empathy, human connection, humour, imagination.
We need to be more mindful of the impact of technology both on how we think, and how we feel. Whether it’s media or ideas, a more intentional approach can help. We need to design AI systems in ways that help us to be more, not less, human.
A version of this post appeared on my weekly Substack of AI and digital trends, and transformation insights. To join our community of over ten thousand subscribers you can sign up to that here.
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