It’s time to un-fuck the news.

If you lived on a diet of Mars bars you would know you had a problem, right?

We all recognise that society has a dangerous relationship with the ultra-processed, high sugar, addictive food we consume. We are starting to understand the damage to our physical health — the obesity, heart disease and cancer caused by ultra-processed-food.

What frightens me is that we’re only looking at half the picture: physical health.

Let’s talk about Ultra-Processed-Media

My assertion is that ultra-processed-media is doing as much damage to our mental health as ultra-processed-food is doing to our physical health.

And I want to do something about the problem.

When I was growing up there were four television channels and no meaningful internet. News was delivered in daily newspapers and a very-limited selection of three to four main stories were delivered in a few television or radio bulletins throughout the day. News was slow and selective.

At the same time, food was relatively slow and home-cooked too. Sure, we had fish-fingers but even packaged food was food. Today, most food is not food, as medic and author Chris van Tulleken puts it. “It’s an industrially produced edible substance.”

Likewise, most news was actually news, naturally derived from meaningful events.

Over time the landscape of news has changed. First, the advent of 24h television news. Then, the broad adoption of the internet by the public and news media, the mobile phone and today: mass adoption — and often subversion — of bite-size, text and video social media presented by anyone, for anyone.

Much as the food industry thrives on keeping us physically hungry, long beyond the point of nutritional benefit, the economic success of the media industry is a function of its ability to keep our attention, long beyond the point of delivering cognitive value.

Over-stimulating our brain

The question is: what is the impact of over stimulating our brains with news?

In the case of our food consumption the outcomes of our dietary habits are pretty clear: we over stimulate our insulin response, gain weight, develop a whole new and unnecessary mode of diabetes and eventually cut our lives prematurely short.

In the case of our media consumption, it is our dopamine response that is being over stimulated.

The damage to our mental health is, however, more insidious. Not only does it impact our own sense of wellbeing, driving our propensity to live stressful, anxious and depressed lives … but it is fomenting a breakdown of our understanding of what is actually real on a massive scale.

As a society — as a species — we are losing the ability to focus on what is materially important.

… and don’t tell me that you are, in some way, immune. Don’t be so naïve.

If you really believe that your news habits are free from ultra-processed-media then I would challenge you to read the ingredients of everything you eat for a week. If you haven’t the self-control and presence of mind to avoid ultra-processed-food, don’t kid yourself that you can do the same with the media you consume — which has no such labelling.

Where do I come into all of this?

I’m trying to develop a safer, more “whole-foods” alternative to ultra-processed-media. I’m trying to build a safe, balanced, slow media platform that provides you with all the nutritional news you need in your life, that sates your appetite for knowledge and social awareness and that doesn’t abuse your trust or your dopamine response in the process.

We’re starting field trials in a few weeks — testing whether using our app for a week makes a meaningful dent in your sense of wellbeing — and if your curious, I invite you to join our little trial by signing up here.

You can also play around with any of our experimental apps. We’ve been building in public and our various approaches are available here.

Finally, I would say that I’m very approachable and I love introductions to other folks working in this field in every way. Please don’t be shy.