Thinking about information as we do food?

I’ve written a number of times here about information overload, information addiction and information management. Here are a few of the more popular ones:

In this TED talk JP Rangaswami thinks about the parallels between food cultivation, preparation and consumption and information cultivation, preparation and consumption:

JP Rangaswami: Information is food

Now there’s some food for thought!

Some ramblings that come to mind:

  • I too am someone who’s waist is larger than it should be because my food diet isn’t what it should be. I heavily suspect that my information diet is likewise on the over-eating side of things. There’s probably a more healthy information diet somewhere that I should be following.
  • Although, the thought that there may, one day, be the equivalent of the grapefruit diet for information workers makes me shudder.
  • I snack more when I work from home because the kitchen is very close. The information kitchen is getting close to being everywhere which is why we are finding it increasingly difficult to stop snacking.
  • I like the creative process of cooking, but I’m no master-chef. Pulling together different pieces of information to create something is really rewarding, but the things I see other people doing amazes me.
  • I quite like fish and chips, it’s not the most healthy food, but it’s very enjoyable. There are some people that I follow on twitter who are like fish and chips.
  • If exercise helps the body to burn food energy, what is it that helps the brain burn information energy?

How would you answer JP Rangaswami’s question: "If you began to think of all the information that you consume the way you think of food, what would you do differently?"

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