Information: Quality over Quantity
Information, like hiking with kids, is better in quality over quantity.
Everywhere I turn, there are seemingly dire (and often contradictory) proclamations about what is ailing our youth. They are too busy! They aren’t busy enough. They won’t be successful unless you force them to do chores! Don’t force them to obey you or else they won’t grow up trusting their own voices!
It’s exhausting, especially as a parent of two kids. The one thing that most experts (and self-proclaimed experts) agree on seems to be screen time and social media; that’s basically evil so don’t let your kids have either. But then you are supposed to somehow find time to work, cook, take care of yourself, and just basically exist, all of which in this day and age basically necessitates screen time, unless you are somehow above that to which I say, hats off to you and congratulations! You and your children must be perfect. That’s so nice. Bless your heart.
In the age where information is coming at us constantly, from every direction, it’s easy to feel like we need to stay right in the fire hose or we will miss something. And the thing we will miss could just be the missing parenting key, the health key, the wealth key, or the ever-elusive happiness key. (Although now, apparently chasing happiness is SO last year. Now we are meant to understand that the search for happiness is a red herring. Or something.). However, I think that actually being picky about the sources of the information can be extremely valuable.
For example, if I binge scroll social media and a few news sites, I’m regaled with memes, news, and pop psychology, someone’s hot take on the latest study that came out. It’s easy to feel the emotional roller coaster—it’s like little bits of info are being thrown at me all at once, and I’m not really digesting any of them, and somehow I’m still hungry for more. This article made a great analogy about information being like food for the brain, and the more we get, the more we feel like we want. And when you aren’t getting it, there’s a constant feeling of lack of disconnect; we are on high alert at all times for the next breaking piece of news or info.
Wading through the weeds to find the good stuff (berries, or information).
However, if instead I sit down and read a book, or an article in The New Yorker, it has the opposite effect on my brain. I’m still consuming information, but the thoughtfulness in the delivery is much different. It might be the screen thing, too—however, I read books on my Kindle and that also has the same brain-soothing effect. The delivery of quality information in a dedicated manner seems to be a balm for my brain, versus the opposite scattered-chaos brain that comes from consuming little bits of info from a variety of sources.
The source is the key here.
First, an article on a news site, a post on social media, and especially an opinion piece or “analysis” are all geared towards generating clicks. There’s an attention cost there; you give your click and your attention, and money (or likes, or “clout”) is made on the back end because of your attention. So there’s an actual incentive for someone to get you to take in that information, but they have no responsibility for how that info will affect you.
Second, the amount of vetting a piece of information goes through on its way to your brain is also important. A post on social media is usually un-vetted. You’re taking in information that is coming straight from who knows where; who knows what the motivations behind the post are. You are a direct recipient of the anger, shaming, misinformation, glee, gloating, insecurity, or whatever else is being projected onto you. In the case of a news article or an opinion or an analysis piece, even on a reputable site, presumably an editor has looked at the piece and given it the okay. But again, they have incentive to get you to click on the piece; in many cases if the piece is inflammatory or bad, it’s seen as a good thing because that generates comments and engagement.
Staying on the path and avoiding the rocky pitfalls along the way.
In the case of a book or a magazine article, there’s presumably more vetting. More brains have processed that information, and the stakes are higher that the information is quality, because that is the currency in this case. A good book sells books. A quality magazine has a strict vetting process and takes the quality of their pieces seriously. These mediums trade on quality because they don’t have the quantity of a digital news site.
All this is not to say that digital news sites are not quality, or that books are always quality—quite the opposite. In many cases, books are printed simply to make a buck. I mean, people have printed books by Rudy Giuliani. And much of digital news reporting on reputable sites is very high quality. It’s just that it’s mixed in with the other stuff that pays for the high quality reporting—ie, the article on, for example “The Truth About “Man Flu” that seems specifically designed for me to click on, but might not convey any real world, necessary info. You have to be discerning; less so than with social media, and more so than a book that was recommended by a trusted friend, a professor, or a top 10 from a reputable bookstore.
I still get sucked in by the clicks, don’t get me wrong—it turns out that while “Man Flu” isn’t really a thing, per se, that men in general have less strong immune systems. But the more I am mindful about where, when, and how I consume information, the more my brain gets a quality diet.
The answer is out there. Or at least there's a better chance it's out here than on the internet.
