There is something profoundly wrong with the way we consume information today, and I believe it is one of the most important challenges facing modern society.
We have access to more information than any generation before us. We can learn about almost any subject, explore distant cultures, follow events unfolding across the planet and communicate with people we would never otherwise encounter.And yet, despite this extraordinary access to knowledge, we seem to be becoming increasingly divided, increasingly frustrated and increasingly disconnected from reality.
The question is: how did we get here?
Most of us live relatively small, ordinary lives.
We have our families, our friends, our workplaces and the familiar places we visit. Our direct experience of the world is limited to a relatively small circle of people and places.
But somehow, we are expected to form opinions about almost everything happening beyond that circle.
We are expected to understand international conflicts, political movements, economic crises, cultural differences and the lives of people living in countries we may never visit.
How do we develop those opinions?
Increasingly, we rely on the internet, and particularly social media, to construct our understanding of the world.
Even those who avoid social media cannot entirely escape its influence. The journalists writing the articles we read, the politicians making decisions, the people we work alongside and the individuals participating in public debate are all influenced by the information circulating online.
Social media has become much more than a place to share photographs or keep in touch with friends. It has fundamentally changed how information is produced, distributed and consumed.
When attention becomes more valuable than truth, this is where the problem begins.
The modern information economy is built around capturing our attention.
Digital platforms compete for our time because our attention can be converted into advertising revenue, influence and profit.
Their recommendation systems are designed to predict what will keep us watching, reading, scrolling and clicking.
But there is a massive difference between capturing someone's attention and actually informing them.
A piece of content can be completely misleading and still be enormously successful. It can be manipulative, poorly researched, deliberately provocative or entirely fabricated.
As long as people keep engaging with it, the system will continue rewarding it.
The algorithm does not understand whether something is accurate, meaningful or beneficial to society. Its priorities are determined by the objectives it has been designed to pursue.
And one of the most effective ways to capture human attention is through emotional provocation.
Anger, fear, outrage and indignation are powerful motivators. They make us stop scrolling. They encourage us to respond. They compel us to share what we have seen with others.
A thoughtful article that quietly explains a complicated issue may receive relatively little attention.
A sensational headline that makes us furious can spread across the internet within minutes.
Over time, this creates an environment where the most emotionally stimulating content can overshadow the most informative content.
We are no longer simply choosing what to read. We are participating in an attention economy that has learnt how to exploit our emotional responses.
There are consequences of living in an information storm.
When we repeatedly encounter alarming headlines, hostile arguments, frightening predictions and misleading information, it begins to affect how we perceive the world.
We may start believing that everything is getting worse, that everyone is becoming more hostile and that society is on the verge of collapse.
Our perception of reality becomes distorted by the information we consume.
We can become so overwhelmed by negative stories that we lose the ability to distinguish between genuine threats and manufactured outrage.
And when our understanding of the world is shaped by incomplete or misleading information, our decisions are affected too.
We vote based on distorted impressions. We develop opinions about people we have never met. We become suspicious of entire groups because of stories designed to provoke us.
Meanwhile, the emergence of artificial intelligence has made it possible to produce enormous quantities of convincing but unreliable content at an unprecedented scale.
The result is an increasingly crowded digital environment where finding something genuinely valuable requires more effort than ever.
But here is something important to remember:
We are not powerless participants in this system.
The platforms may control their algorithms, but we still have considerable influence over the information we choose to engage with.
And changing our own behaviour can make a meaningful difference.
Five Ways to Reclaim Your Information Environment
1. Stop rewarding content that exists purely to provoke you
This is the most important change we can make.
When you encounter an obviously misleading headline, a deliberately inflammatory post or something that appears to have been created purely to generate outrage, resist the temptation to engage.
Do not quote it to ridicule it. Do not leave an angry comment. Do not share it with friends simply to demonstrate how ridiculous it is.
Even negative engagement can increase the visibility of content.
The platform may not understand that you are disgusted by what you have seen. It may simply register that you spent time reading it, responding to it or sharing it.
And that can encourage the system to show you more of the same.
This is particularly important when dealing with low-quality, automated or AI-generated content.
You could spend several minutes composing an intelligent response to something that took a machine a few seconds to produce.
In doing so, you are giving that content far more attention and visibility than it deserves.
Sometimes the most effective response is simply to move on.
You do not have to correct every falsehood you encounter. You do not have to participate in every argument.
Your attention is valuable. Treat it accordingly.
2. Give meaningful content the attention it deserves
If we want a better internet, we need to do more than reject the bad. We need to encourage the good.
When you discover someone producing thoughtful, informative or genuinely creative work, let them know.
Read their articles. Watch their videos. Leave a meaningful comment. Share their work with people who might appreciate it.
And remember, quality does not necessarily mean agreeing with everything being said.
A well-researched argument that challenges your assumptions can be far more valuable than a shallow post that confirms everything you already believe.
The important thing is to recognise content that contributes something worthwhile to the conversation.
Our engagement sends signals about what we want to see more of.
If we consistently give our attention to thoughtful discussions, original ideas and genuine human creativity, we help create an environment where those things have a greater chance of being discovered.
We cannot expect the internet to become more informative if we continually reward the opposite.
3. Use the tools designed to protect your feed
Most platforms provide ways to influence what appears in front of you.
You may have options such as hiding a post, selecting “not interested”, reducing recommendations or blocking particular types of content.
Use them.
If something repeatedly appears in your feed and contributes nothing positive or useful, tell the platform you do not want to see it.
One action may not seem significant, but consistent feedback can gradually change the recommendations you receive.
The important thing is to be deliberate.
Rather than allowing the platform to continually experiment with your attention, actively communicate what you want and what you do not want.
Think of it as tending a garden.
If you allow everything to grow indiscriminately, the things you actually want may eventually become buried beneath everything else.
You have the ability to remove some of that clutter.
4. Learn when to disengage from people who repeatedly spread misinformation
This can be one of the most difficult changes, particularly when the person sharing questionable information is someone you care about.
Perhaps it is a friend, a relative or someone you have known for years.
You see something they have posted and immediately feel compelled to explain why it is wrong.
You gather evidence, prepare your arguments and spend an enormous amount of time trying to convince them.
But sometimes, no matter how carefully you explain yourself, the conversation goes nowhere.
And in the process, you may damage a relationship that matters to you.
There is also another consequence that is easy to overlook.
Your repeated interactions with that person can signal to the platform that this subject is particularly interesting to both of you.
The result may be more of the same material appearing in your feeds.
You are trying to correct the misinformation, but your engagement inadvertently increase its visibility.
This does not mean that we should never challenge falsehoods or engage in difficult conversations.
There are times when speaking up is important.
But we should also recognise when a discussion has become unproductive.
Muting someone does not necessarily mean ending a friendship. It can simply mean choosing not to have their online activity constantly inserted into your daily life.
Sometimes protecting a relationship means stepping away from the endless cycle of online arguments.
And sometimes, the account spreading misinformation may not even belong to a genuine person.
Automated accounts and coordinated networks can produce enormous amounts of misleading material. Giving those accounts attention only increases their potential value.
Do not allow your desire to correct every falsehood to become another mechanism through which that content spreads.
5. Choose the information you consume instead of letting it choose you
Many platforms offer different ways to view content.
There is often a personalised recommendation feed, filled with material the system predicts you might find interesting.
Then there is the content from people you have deliberately chosen to follow.
Whenever possible, make the latter your starting point.
Follow creators whose work you genuinely value. Subscribe to publications that provide thoughtful reporting. Seek out people who explore subjects in depth rather than simply reacting to the latest controversy.
If your platform allows you to organise your feed into lists or categories, use those features.
You do not need to begin every online session by asking an algorithm what it thinks you should see.
You can decide for yourself.
And when something appears from an unfamiliar account, remember that you are under no obligation to investigate it simply because it has been placed in front of you.
Your time is limited. Your attention is limited.
Spend both on things that genuinely matter to you.
An Important Sixth Point: Support the People Creating Something Worthwhile
There is another part of this problem that deserves far more attention.
Creating high-quality content takes time, knowledge, effort and often considerable financial investment.
Yet much of the internet operates on the assumption that information, art, research and creative work should be available for free.
When creators cannot earn a sustainable income from their work, they are often forced to rely on advertising, sponsorships or increasingly sensational content to attract attention.
This creates a difficult cycle.
The people producing the most thoughtful and carefully researched material may struggle to survive, while those producing endless quantities of sensational content can become highly profitable.
We can help change that.
If there is a writer, researcher, artist, journalist or independent creator whose work genuinely enriches your life, consider supporting them.
Subscribe to their newsletter. Join their membership. Purchase their work. Contribute a small amount if you can afford it.
Even a modest contribution, multiplied across a community of supporters, can help someone continue producing valuable work.
We need to recognise that a healthier information environment requires more than better algorithms.
It also requires a culture that values the people who create meaningful things.
The Internet We Want Is Still Possible
It is easy to feel that the problems of the modern internet are too enormous for any individual to influence.
But our online behaviour is not insignificant.
Every click, every comment, every share and every moment spent watching something contributes to the digital environment we collectively create.
We may not control the platforms, but we can influence what they learn from us.
We can stop giving endless attention to content designed to provoke us.
We can reward thoughtful work.
We can use the tools available to reduce unwanted material.
We can step away from unproductive arguments.
We can choose our own sources of information.
And we can support the people who are creating something genuinely worthwhile.
Imagine what might happen if millions of people began making these choices consistently.
The internet would not become perfect overnight. There would still be misinformation, disagreement and people trying to manipulate public opinion.
But the incentives would begin to change.
And over time, we could create a digital environment that encourages curiosity rather than hostility, understanding rather than division, and knowledge rather than endless outrage.
The first step is recognising that our attention is not something we owe to every piece of content placed in front of us.
We have the right to decide what deserves our attention.
And when we begin exercising that right more consciously, we take back a little more control over the information we consume, the opinions we form and ultimately, the world we believe we are living in.
A better internet does not begin with an algorithm.
It begins with us.
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