The concept of an information diet is a relatively new one, and the thoughts and ideas in this book come from research and interviews with scores of people. In addition to pointing you towards the research papers and books I’ve read and recommend to further your study, it’s also important to follow the people who are leading this field, who are studying how the mind works, the economics of information, and the ever-changing face of our news media.
As much of our scientific research still sits behind paywalls, interacting directly with the scientists who use social media has an added payoff: you’ll gain exposure to their work without having to subscribe to the various scientific publication services. In the spirit of infoveganism, I advise you to connect directly with these researchers and scientists.
Matt Cutts is the head of the web-spam team at Google, the person with the job of managing Panda, and maintaining Google’s delicate search relationship with content farms. He’s been called “Google’s Greenspan.”
Dr. Iacaboni’s insight on the consequences of neuroplasticity and how we affect each other is tremendously important to follow.
Dr. Kanai’s research links our brain’s structure to our political affiliations. His continued interests are around our perception of time, the neuroscience behind our attention, and distractibility.
Dr. Nyhan’s work on measuring the effectiveness of messaging on the public and the outcomes of our information consumption is leading the field. Read his papers and engage with him online. He’s responsive and smart.
Robert Proctor invented the term agnotology, and was the inspiration for Chapter 7.
Julian Sanchez is the person who brought the idea of epistemic closure into the modern political dialog. He’s a writer for Reason magazine and the CATO institute.
Linda Stone’s research on conscious computing, email apnea, and our attention spans is amazing to watch. Follow her work at:
John Tierney is a science columnist for the New York Times and, along with Roy Baumeister, is the author of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.
http://twitter.com/JohnTierneyNYT
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/columns/johntierney/index.html
Jeff Jarvis is an associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program and the new business models for news project at the City University of New York’s Gradute School of Journalism. While he’s not directly quoted in this book, his thought leadership around the field of journalism is worth paying attention to.
Dan Gillmor teaches digital media entrepreneurship and is founding director of the Knight Center on Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His work is trying to make sense of the new fields of journalism and how the digital industrialization of it can yield new business models.
Jim Gilliam is the consummate civic hacker, using his skills to try and connect people to each other and to the levers of power in their local communities. He’s the founder of 3dna, a startup in California that builds tools to shake up a political system, most recently NationBuilder, an affordable tool that allows people to organize effectively.
My hope is that this book isn’t the end of something, but the start of something: an exploration into how our information affects our health. I certainly have not provided all the answers in this book, and there’s still so much more work to be done. Please, be in touch.
You can find me on Google+ at: http://gplus.to/cjoh
I use Google+ to have discussions with people about the topics of this book, and to do the occasional video chat with people interested in the field. Please stop by and interact with me.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjoh
I tend to use Twitter to broadcast my latest writing, and to share simple links about the field of information dieting, government data, and activism.
Behind this book lies scores of others, and I’ve drawn from the research of many others to write this one. If you’d like to pursue studying in this field, I recommend the following:
Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. Harper Perennial, 2010.
Baumeister, Roy F., and John Tierney. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Penguin Press, 2011.
Brown, Stuart, M.D., and Christopher Vaughan. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2009.
Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W.W. Norton & Co., 2011.
Hurley, Matthew M., Daniel C. Dennett, Reginald B. Adams Jr. Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. MIT Press, 2011.
Manjoo, Farhad. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. Wiley, 2008.
Medina, John. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Pear Press, 2009.
Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You. Penguin Press, 2011.
Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Touchstone Books, 2001.
Scully, Matthew. Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003.
Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators. Penguin Press, 2011.
Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway. Anchor, 1996.
Tavris, Caroll, and Elliot Aronson. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. Mariner Books, 2008.
Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry). University of California Press, 2009.
Three blogs kept me informed on the latest developments of science around this field, and their work is really remarkable. I encourage you to be a regular reader of each, if you want to constantly fine-tune your information diet. The debate in the science community over what I’ve discussed in my book is lively, and worth paying attention to.
Deric Bownds’ Mindblog: http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/
Jonah Lehrer’s Frontal Cortex: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex/
Re:Cognition: http://thebeautifulbrain.com/category/recognition/