Is it time you go on a content diet?
We consume more content than ever before.
I believe our daily scrolling now exceeds the height of the Eiffel Tower.
We are bombarded with content, we cannot really get away from content of all shapes and sizes, quantity has overtaken quality, it’s a battleground; the good, bad and the ugly.
We have TV, books, magazines, podcasts, newsletters, blogs, websites, online video (YouTube), apps, news, social media, instant messages all vying with our attention and energy all day every day.
I know, like me, many find this exhausting.
Our news has been tweaked and mixed with entertainment and then blended with reality tv, we are now served a world where news is not news it has to be seen as entertainment to keep viewers and keep them on that channel.
If we want the news it has entertainment thrown in with a reality spin or headline. This has slowly but surely changed since the 1980s.
It is important to remember important decision-makers are making essential decisions not knowing a different world of content.
Content has never been so accessible, so open and so ‘free’.
For years I curated the best content feeds I could on any social platform or tool (Twitter, Feedly, YouTube) I use tools (like RSS and Nuzzel) to serve me must-read content without me having to scroll through endless feeds and email me the most shared articles or shared from those accounts I deemed as most important.
Tiktok and the next-gen of apps have flipped the need to discover and follow friends, into watch more effortlessly and be fed more content you will love to consume and share.
Desires are driven now by algorithms.
We face a huge amount of negative content exposure, I always referenced the old saying ‘bad news is only good news for journalists’ and now it is great news for advertising companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
This is a difficult cycle.
Anything for clicks → anything for monetisation → anything for more content.
‘Content’ is supposed to be an escape, a quick update, amusing, a way to cure an itch or an urge we might have, now it is becoming addictive, engineered to keep us checking, reading and sharing.
Is it time for JOMO (joy of missing out) not FOMO (fear of missing out) – I likely think so.
Without rethinking and reframing, are you going to keep following the same cycle?
Is this the best time to change or go on a content diet?
For me, I will be, it’s not going to be easy with the must reads newsletter but it is something I know I have to do and steps I have to take to keep my content snacking to a minimum.
Will you be changing your content diet? I hope so.