The Information Diet: a book non-review

I while ago, I started reading a book called "The Information Diet." While I don't remember much from the book, I still think it's a great book--mostly just because of the title. I really like the idea of comparing information consumption with food consumption. These days there is an infinite amount of information available. This is pretty close to being literally true, as the amount of information available for free on the internet would take many lifetimes to consume. This means that we need some way of filtering information, or we will choke trying to swallow too much of it.

It seems that humans evolved to take in as much information as possible. Our body's are relatively weak compared to other animals, but our brains are like mutant super-versions of animal brains. This indicates that information was key to our early survival as a species. Personally, I still feel the instinctual urge to take in as much information as I can. I could sit in front of my computer all day and read or watch articles and videos on science, politics, math, parenting, self-improvement, etc. Is this really useful? Pretty clearly not, but brain always seems to say, "Oh, this next video (or article) looks really important. Don't miss that one." It's an exhausting cycle. It's also frustrating, because the information always does seem to be useful or valuable. But if you really want to know if something is worthwhile to watch or read, you can't just think about the benefit of it, you also have to think about the cost (Econ 101, right?).

So much information is free nowadays, that it often seems like there is no cost. This is why it's important to start thinking about information as analogous to food. If someone provided you with infinite food forever, when would you stop eating? If you're smart, you'll stop eating when you're full, in spite of your inbuilt instincts to keep on eating until you can't hold any more. What is the cost of eating too much food? Feeling gross, being unhealthy, feeling lethargic, and being unable to be productive. Too much information consumption may have similar negative effects. But there are also some costs for information over-consumption that are not shared with food. What is the cost of reading one more article? You spend your time, your attention, your memory, your focus. Even your memory and focus, which you may think you can stretch infinitely can be affected by taking in too much information. Are you really going to remember the most important information of ten different articles that you read?

Another negative effect of taking in too much information is that you're body doesn't clearly signal to you when you've had enough, as it does with food. This means that information consumption can consume your time, a lot more of it than food consumption can. You can only spend so much time eating in one day, right?

So how do you decide what information to actually consume? Let's go back to the food analogy. Most people can sketch out what a healthy diet looks like: a good balance of carbs, protein, fat. Use high quality ingredients, make sure there are vegetables and some fruit, cook them in a way that preserves nutrition. Throw in some variety to make sure that you are getting different nutrients vitamins and minerals. And of course you want to exercise to actually make use of the energy that you are taking in.

The following is not going to be an exact cross-over, so bear with me, but the purpose is to see how the idea of diet (continuous consumption out of infinite possibilities) can be used for information.

- High quality ingredients: this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Your information sources should be high quality, because this is what you are feeding your brain (actually food feeds the brain too, so that's another reason to eat high quality food. 

- Healthy cooking: This is analogous to integrating information consumption into your life in a way that enhances life, rather than degrading it. Reading from a bright screen late at night is unhealthy cooking. Listening to a podcast or audiobook while you make coffee or commute to work--that's healthy cooking, generally.

- Carbs, proteins, and fat: All of these are sources of energy, so you can think of these as different kinds of information that move you forward in life. There's no real good analogies, but you could think of them as fiction (carbs), non-fiiction news (protein), and other non-fiction (fat). Or make up whatever analogy works for you.

So the one-to-one comparison between eating and consuming information doesn't seem to work that well, but the overall concept is very useful. Both are things that we will do for the rest of our lives. It would be a good idea to create good habits around the processes.

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption (Amazon affiliate link).

How to learn from a book before you even read it

I'm a big fan of books. It's amazing how much you can learn or be entertained by a small, portable packet of papers that you only paid ten to twenty dollars for. But I recently realized a problem with books. Because a book usually takes a significant amount of time to read, I can only read a few each year. I used to be able to read many books in one year, but now I'm pretty busy so that's not feasible anymore.

So what should I do about this? Be depressed and contemplate the shortness of life? Surely there's a better solution. And it dawned on me recently.

I've been thinking about the fact that books have an advantage on podcasts. These are two things I love to spend my free time on. But the advantage that books have is that each book has an ending. When you finish a book, you feel like you've accomplished something. And hopefully you have gained something valuable as well--like gaining useful information or having read a memorable story that will stick with you. But podcasts, in general, never end. They just keep on going as long as people subscribe. To be fair, this can also be viewed as an advantage podcasts have over books, because they can be like a long-term companion. But if you want a feeling of accomplishment, a book is a better way to get it. All this was leading me to the question: how do I balance my information consumption time between podcasts and books?

Then I thought, "Oh, there's this book I've been thinking about reading (Algorithms to Live By) that might talk about this question, or something like it." But this lead me to think, "Do I really have to read a book to answer one question?" which lead me to this insight: You don't have to read a book to benefit from it. Instead, you could ask yourself, "What will this book probably say about the question that I have?" Think of an answer, and use that answer to improve your life.

So what's my answer for the question that I had? (How do I balance my information consumption time between podcasts and books?) I realized that the answer comes from the advantages that each medium has. Books are better for giving you a sense of accomplishment. Podcasts are better companions. So we can simplify it to this question: Do you want to be getting things done or do you want more friends? If the answer is getting things done, read more books; it it's to have more friends, listen to podcasts (and maybe find more friends, if you actually have that need). There are obviously other factors that can be considered to fine tune your decisions, but sometimes a simple if-then statement can be very helpful for cutting through confusion and indecision.

So to summarize, if you feel like there are too many books to read, you can benefit from a book without even reading it by asking yourself what the book will probably say about some question, then use that answer to more forward with some decision. I may still read the book Algorithms to Live By, because it still seems like it could be valuable, but as it is, the book has helped me just by existing.

Lessons I'm learning about teaching

I have been a teacher now for about four years. Every year, I learn so much about teaching. Here are some of the things I've been learning this year...

I've been learning a lot about teaching this semester in particular, primarily because some of my classes have been complaining about my teaching. I guess you could call that a blessing in disguise, because it's pushing me to improve my craft. These are the lessons that I've come up with so far.

- First priority for a teacher is student buy-in (closely related to motivation).
- Grading equity is very important, and inequity, or even the students believing that you are being equal, can kill your rapport with the students.
- Assessment should happen as often as possible, because it gives you a solid pulse on what is happening in the class, and it gives students motivation and clear purpose.
- Students want to do things in class, such as have discussions, play games, do experiments, etc. (Maybe obvious, but it can be a good reminder.)
- Inspiring students to love a subject may be more important than actually teaching them knowledge in the subject. (Think about it. How much do students remember from high school physics? Mostly whether they like it or not, right?)

I'm not one hundred percent sure of these conclusions, but they are useful to me right now because they come from problems that I identified with the generous help of the students.

In fact, I offered extra credit for an essay giving me advice on what I can change about my teaching. I got a flood of advice, some of it pretty difficult to swallow, but it was useful--primarily just for getting an idea about what the students were thinking about my teaching. It wasn't pretty.

That was discouraging at first, but I realized that I can learn from it, and I also realized that some of the students may not have had a negative opinion of me but they were influenced to do so by the other students. Which leads into some of my lessons. Students are highly influenced by their peers. If a few students think I'm a crappy teacher, it can quickly spread to the whole class even if the rest of the students didn't have that thought in the first place. This is why establishing rapport with the students from the beginning is critical.

So I'm thankful to my students who criticized me. I will use their criticism to become a better teacher. Hopefully any mistakes that I made will not kill their love of physics for the long term.