Manifesting My Ideal Information Diet
Weaning myself off the teat of algorithmic feeds
I only ever drink water and caffeine-free tea, and the occasional glass of milk with pancakes or cookies. I don't think I've ever had a single sip of Coke or Pepsi, because those have always naturally disgusted me. Those drinks are the color of feces. I understand "Would you like a Coke?" as "Would you like to ingest this bubbly, brown liquid made of sugar and phosphoric acid?" I have no craving for teeth-rotting drinks, and I know my life is better for my abstinence, but I still haven't kicked my craving for brain-rotting media. So, I want to reverse-engineer the same sort of innate, unwavering disgust I have for brown, bubbly drinks and manufacture it as a deterrent against the unhealthy parts in my media diet.
To be clear, it's not so much the content of a piece of media that makes it brain-rotting; more, it's how I consume it. When my consumption is mindless, when media is merely an escape from something overwhelming, challenging, stressful, or boring (and likely important and valuable), that is when media rots my brain. The rotten brain is one unable to focus. The rotting brain is one that practices distraction.
In every moment, I am either practicing mindfulness and focus or mindlessness and distraction. Either the laser-light of my attention is burning a hole through a single object, or it is undirected and diffuse: a lamp dimly illuminating a cluttered room. My attention is not a commodity to be fondled over by FAANG;1 it is the power of my mind manifested. It is sacred, and it is my duty to not piss it away. So, this becomes a critical question: What media is worthy of my attention?
As an editor by trade, it's natural for me to impose ruthlessly high standards on the media I consume, impulsively and involuntarily judging whatever I read, watch, or listen to. I'm always conscious of how I am cultivating my taste. And I'm hyper-aware of the opportunity cost of consuming brain-rotting media: I have too many unread books on my shelf that would be more nourishing. I feel a debilitating guilt whenever I waste hours of my time scrolling infinite, algorithmic feeds. I curse the weakness of my will. Well, enough of that.
In my best effort to manufacture a disgust for unconscious consumption, I've come up with this ugly scene: I imagine myself as a swine bent over a trough, gobbling up whatever my owners decide to shovel into me — the same owners that will eventually slaughter me, chop me up, and recycle my bits as slop through the same trough for the next generation of pork. I conjure this scene in my mind every time I hear the phrase "social media feed," and it tempers my craving for unconscious consumption.
Feed (n):
a. Food for animals, especially livestock.
b. An apparatus that supplies material to a machine.2
I don't want to be fed anything. I don't want anyone else deciding what's on the menu. Yet, when I get overwhelmed or stressed or bored, I too often, unconsciously bow towards the slop in the trough. I must become a stalwart steward of my attention; I must stop using media as a distraction and, instead, give to it (and to anything at hand) my complete, undivided attention.
Parental Controls for My Monkey-Brain
I have come to accept that my will is weak. At least for now, it is weaker than all the ways the world's brightest minds have cleverly designed platforms, software, and digital devices to capture and keep my attention. I have a simple monkey-brain. Or, at best, the distraction-craving part of my brain3 is prepubescent. I need parental controls.
I've created the following rules for myself to support conscious media consumption and to filter out any media that is not worthy of my attention. All of these are about how I consume media and how I prioritize different forms of media. I've experimented with all of these rules before, and when I've stuck to them, these habits have enhanced the quality of my life. So, now I've codified my most successful experiments into a set of commands for myself, which I intend to uphold with the full force of my will.
Books before all else.
I'm a writer and an editor, and I want to write and edit books. If I'm being honest with myself, I have no business consuming any other form of media within a day if I haven't already spent time reading a book. And what a pleasure a book is! An expert, informed by years of study, compiles the most valuable information she knows, or tells the most compelling story he can muster, and renders it in captivating prose that is subject to high editorial standards. On the metrics of value-per-minute or wisdom-per-word, no place on the Internet comes close to most books.
I know how valuable books are, yet the "start-up friction" for a book is greater than almost all other media, and so is the amount of focus required to read a book: one page, one line, one word at a time. But that's exactly why books ought to be the foundation of my information diet. They require my full attention and punish me for getting distracted. Effectively, the rest of the these rules are ways to get other forms of media out of my way, so that I have more space and time to focus on books.
Boycott algorithmic feeds.
Marshall McLuhan said that the medium is the message. What is the message of an infinite, algorithmic feed of short-form videos? I offer this: "Come here, honey. Don't worry. You don't need to trouble with your own thoughts." And Neil Postman said that the medium is the metaphor, meaning that the current prevailing medium for information and entertainment is a model for culture. So, what does the algorithmic feed mean for society? To me, it is this attitude/sentiment: "Take me elsewhere, anywhere but here." We're running away from each other, slipping through the portals in our pockets to get out of our bus seats, out of domestic arguments, out of college lectures, out of our minds.
TikTok is the current apex predator in the attention-economy jungle, and its genetic code is the result of natural selection. What gets people to stay on your platform the longest? Short-form videos spawned from the black box of an algorithm, just "for you." Why would you ever put down your phone when there's surely something more interesting than your reality just one more swipe away?
TikTok's real innovation was not short-form, vertical videos; it was the medium of the "For You" feed. That's what every other platform has copied from TikTok, since it's so effective at harvesting attention. Before TikTok, you would decide what showed up on your feed, by choosing who you followed. The algorithms only determined the order in which the content appeared, how your feed was prioritized. But since TikTok, the algorithms are curating your feed, rather than merely optimizing it. It is not "your feed" anymore. You're being fed.
I've never dowloaded TikTok, and I deleted Instagram years ago, right after they launched Reels. The only algorithm that captures me is YouTube's recommendations, and the nascent Shorts are especially tricky. Of course, there are valuable short-form videos on YouTube, because humans are cool and creative and they post Shorts. But there is too much noise to justify the few blips of truly educational or entertaining content.
By boycotting algorithmic feeds, I'm refusing to eat whatever spawns from the black box, and this policy has the added benefit of removing short-form videos from my information diet. Distraction eliminated, life upgraded.
Here's how I'm going about this (because, if you use the Internet at all, it's not easy):
Delete Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat from my phone (which I did in 2021).
Never download TikTok (yeah, no chance I'm changing my mind on this one).
Keep Twitter (X) and LinkedIn for messaging, but don't scroll the feeds (which, thankfully, I don't have a habit of doing).
Use the Undistracted Chrome extension to block all YouTube Shorts, and default YouTube.com to my Subscriptions feed. (I discovered this recently, via
, and it's helping).Create a list of the movies and TV shows I want to watch, and only open the relevant streaming service after I've already decided what I'm going to watch. (Or, even better, buy or rent the film/show — see sub.)
Use only the "Following" feed on Substack Notes.Uh oh, I just noticed that they removed this….
If this rule seems too harsh or limiting for you, keep the apps and your accounts, but only use social media when you have something to share, when you want to explore something specific, or when you're curious about the life-happenings of someone you know. Don't scroll the whole feed; search your friend's Instagram profile to catch up on their latest vacation. Or maybe, if they're really your friend, just call them on the phone.
Only play finite video games.
I've always loved video games, and I don't want to stop playing them; they're probably my favorite form of entertainment. I've tried many things to cut back on my gaming and swap that time for reading, but I made the mistake of vilifying gaming and trying to quit it altogether. When I have prevented myself from gaming, I replaced it not with reading but with more useless YouTube-watching, and I had less fun and got less value from my leisure time than I would have if I'd been gaming. I've finally embraced video games, and I've landed on this rule to help keep the reading-to-gaming ratio in check.
Infinite video games have short, repetitive gameplay loops; this includes any FPS multiplayer game or any fighting game, like Super Smash Bros. (my greatest vice). Infinite games — or game modes — have no story, and they are structurally identical to a feed of short-form videos (though, to me, more engaging and more fun). I have sunk too much time into infinite video games, because they're so easy to start and so hard to stop; there's always time for "one more round." Now, I'm committing to finite games that are story-driven. They have a beginning, middle, and — most importantly — an end.
As I said about books, start-up friction is a significant hurdle to clear. It's hard to pick up a book, because I'll want to spend at least a half an hour with it, and I'll want to complete at least one full chapter. It's so much easier to pick up my phone, open YouTube, or turn on my Switch. And I justify those choices with "I'll just watch/play something for fifteen minutes." But when it comes to gaming, start-up friction is a good thing. I want more of it. It means I'll pick up games less frequently and when I do, I'll focus on them more intently and maybe even learn something about how to tell a good story.
By committing to finite video games, my total gaming time will decrease, and I'll enjoy video games more, because I won't feel guilty about playing them unconsciously. Here are some finite, story-driven games I've played over the past several years that I have loved. This list is the model for the sort of games I want to play going forward:4
Firewatch
Outer Wilds
Celeste
Ori and the Blind Forest
Portal (1 & 2)
Aer
Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Buy or rent all books, films, video games, and TV shows.
No Netflix, no Hulu, no Disney+, no Apple Tv+, no HBOMax, no Prime Video, no Xbox Game Pass.5
If I'm not willing to pay money for a piece of media, then maybe it's not worth my time and attention either. This may be the most effective way to filter for media of quality, and it helps me consume a fewer number of total things, so that I can give more of my focus to each. It also forces me to decide what I'll consume in advance, never deferring to what a streaming service is recommending.
This approach requires research, and I need help from my friends and curators like vidogamedunky and The Academy to decide what's worth my time and money. (I didn't do enough research before paying to see Deadpool & Wolverine in theaters, and it pissed me off. I won't let that happen again.) I'd much rather follow the recommendations of people with good taste than pay media companies to recommend me the latest, hottest garbage.
Your counterargument might be that this is expensive, that I could watch more for less by subscribing to streaming services. You're right. I could watch more for less, but my goal is to watch less. This year, I've watched fewer than two films per month, and here is an exhaustive list of the TV seasons I've watched in 2024:
Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Seasons 1, 2, & 3
Sex Education, Season 4
The Bear, Seasons 1, 2, & 3
You tell me if that amount of consumption is worth paying $185 and $80 for a year of Netflix and Hulu, respectively, for the privilege of being distracted by low-quality content.6
If I want to watch a show that is exclusively on a streaming platform, I can pay for a few months and then cancel my subscription. (The Bear, for instance, is no doubt worth 3 months of Hulu at $6.99/mo. Yes, pace yourself — one season per month.)
Instead of paying subscriptions to companies, I want to only pay subscriptions to creators.
Avoid all digital ads.
Ads are by nature distractions; they pull you away from the object of your focus, interrupting the activity/information/entertainment at hand. Ad revenue is important, because it ensures that most media can remain publicly available. But that doesn't mean that I have to participate in the whole machine and allow my future spending to be persuaded. Physical ads are impossible to avoid — along the highway, in the elevator, by the cash register. But, for now at least, there are ways to avoid or to ignore digital ads:
When there's a commercial break on live TV, or an ad break when streaming, mute it and look away. Do something else: breathe, cook, clean, read, talk to the other person/people in the room.
Use an ad-blocker in your browser, or pay to remove ads on the platform/website.
Use a read-it-later app like Readwise to strip the text and image data from a webpage to read articles ad-free.
Don't open marketing emails, or open them only to unsubscribe.
Skip through podcast ad reads with the +15s/+30s buttons.
Don't scroll social media feeds (see supra).
No porn.
This probably seems like the odd one out, but it is undeniably relevant, especially for young men. Try to explain to me how you could consciously consume porn. When is it not a distraction from your day, from your insecurities, from your partner, from your own body? Watching porn is an unconscious activity (barring staggeringly few exceptions, like if you were to attentively listen to certain audio porn or attentively watch certain ethical porn).
Why "no porn"? It's simple: so that I don't dissociate from my member or distance myself from women. Self-pleasure is healthy for wellbeing and sex and energy, but watching porn is detrimental to those very same things. I ought to abstain from the later but not from the former. Watching porn may be the most unconscious form of media consumption and the worst possible use of my attention.
Don't watch sports or the news.
One general principle that underlies this whole list of rules is the following: Value local and timeless knowledge over global and timely information. "Local and timeless" — that means only consuming media that is relevant and applicable to my life or that could teach me something about a subject I value.7
Examples of media that are global and timely: the news, sports, and almost anything on social media feeds. Examples of media that are local and timeless (for me): works of literature and philosophy; instruction on English composition, storytelling, or editing; inspirational or informative videos on skiing, hiking, or calisthenics; primary-source news coverage, like a live feed of a presidential debate; long-form articles and narrative essays.
If I am going to consume the news, I need to either read it from a source I trust or, if I must watch, watch unedited, primary-source coverage of an event. And if I am going to watch sports, it must be live with friends.
"I need to be informed" is bullshit, because I don't need to be constantly updated on all the things happening in the world; I don't need to be constantly worrying about all the things that I can't control. Instead of keeping up with political drama, I'll study philosophy. Then, when I'm presented with a specific political issue, I'll inform my position based on what I believe, not based on what I've heard the pundits say.
I have not watched the news at all for about four years. My life has improved, and the world hasn't gotten any worse. Hallelujah.
I felt compelled to publish this, rather than keeping it as a journal entry, so that it could serve as a form a social accountability. Manifesting is in the title because I'm hoping that is exactly what this little listicle will do for me. And, of course, I hope it gives you something to think about too. What will you change about your information diet so that you only consume media that is worthy of your complete and undivided attention?
Springboard
You'll notice that most of these rules require abstinence: no algorithmic feeds, no short-form videos, etc. I've learned that if I dabble in these things, I drown in them. If you're trying to change your diet, it's easier to abstain from buying junk food at the grocery store than it is to keep yourself from eating the junk once it's in your kitchen.
Hence, today’s Springboard — a carefully crafted question to help you dive inwards:
What form of media do you unconsciously consume? Would your life be better if it were simply not on the menu?
Recap of the Rules
Books before all else.
Boycott algorithmic feeds.
Only play finite video games.
Buy or rent all books, films, video games, and TV shows.
Avoid all digital ads.
No porn.
Don't watch sports or the news.
Thank you for reading — and man, I hope you feel that this was worthy of your attention.
– Garrett Kincaid
FAANG = Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google — recently rebranded as MAMAA (Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet)
This is a selection from the many senses described in the American Heritage Dictionary's definition.
I.e., the truth-averse, self-important, fragile ego
I'm allowing for the occasional exception to this rule for a sprawling, life-enriching, open-world experience if I think it would meet the standard of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, or Batman: Arkham City. And I'll allow the occasional foray into a multiplayer shooter only at the standard of Titanfall 2 or Overwatch. The final exception is that I can play infinite video games like Mario Kart or Smash Bros. if I'm doing it live with friends.
You may notice that music is excluded from this rule. Spotify is the exception. It's not only a distributor of music but also my mechanism for discovering new music. I have curated a library of songs and playlists, and I listen to new music often. (Spotify is also where I listen to podcasts, which I find valuable — only a select few shows and no more than two episodes per week.) To support my favorite artists, I buy their merch, buy their albums on vinyl, and buy tickets to their concerts. I've probably given more money to my favorite music artists than I have to my favorite writers or my favorite filmmakers, and that I find to be a sufficient justification for my Spotify subscription.
I'm in the fortunate position of having access to most streaming services via my family’s accounts and those of my girlfriend’s family. Even with access to these platforms, I still use them in the way I've just described. When I open Hulu, I squint my eyes and scroll past the recommendations, down to "Continue Watching" –> The Bear (again, I highly recommend).
The only subscriptions I currently pay for are Spotify, Van Neistat's Patreon, and
I first came up with this rule when I decided I didn't want to work in finance. In college, as a quantitative finance major, I always hated reading market news, because it is so ephemeral and inconsequential. An article might inform you for a day or for one trade. I'd much rather spend my reading time acquiring timeless knowledge, the greatest source of which I have always found to be books of philosophy.
As someone who is always deconstructing the algorithms around me, this was a very valuable exploration, Garrett.
I agree with most of this except the point on only lasting finite video games. I would say play an infinite video game, but only play one every year before switching to the next one.