This is John Reith, the first Director General of the BBC.

The BBC began over 100 years ago, in 1922, and from the start, Reith had a clear idea of what the mission of the corporation should be. It existed as he put it:

• To Inform
• To Educate
• To Entertain

The media landscape has changed almost unrecognizably in the last century, yet this categorization still stands up remarkably well. Today, in a world of mind-boggling choices, it can be a great way to ensure you consume what your better angels want.

The Macronutrients of Media

You are almost certainly familiar with the macronutrients in our diet – everything we eat breaks down into three broad categories – Carbohydrates, Protein, and Fat.

When it comes to consuming media, it can be helpful to think about media in the same way – using the elements of Reith’s mission statement as a set of “macronutrients of media”, and consider how much you are receiving of:

• Information (News)
• Education (Knowledge and Wisdom)
• Entertainment (Enjoyment)

If you want to learn and grow, you will need a balanced diet of all three, and being mindful of how much you get of each can help you reach your goals.

Media Meals

These macronutrients of media come together in meals – everything from books, podcasts, newspaper articles, TV shows, gaming and social media.

And one of the interesting things is that the types of meals you consume can affect how much nutritional value you get out of them – even individual types of media can be very different.

Take online articles, for example. Research from the people at Smart Brevity shows that people recall very little from many articles over a certain length. Podcasts are the same – you may feel smart spending 3 hours with your favorite podcast, but unless you are chunking it up, you are missing massive amounts after only a few minutes.

That’s why we have completely redesigned our Humanity Working podcast to be 10 minutes per episode – hopefully, this will be 10 minutes you pay attention to.

As for really short content – this brings its own, more insidious risks, which brings me to…

Ultra-Processed Media (UPM)

In the last couple of years, enormous attention has been paid to ultra-processed foods (UPFs)—foods designed in labs and factories to be highly addictive, and that bear so little resemblance to real food that our bodies do not know how to react to them. Increasingly, it is believed that UPFs are the primary cause of the obesity epidemic.

But what is ultra-processed media (UPM)? I define UPM as the mental equivalent of UPFs – designed explicitly for consumption and addiction and created in such a way that our normal neural pathways don’t know how to deal with it. But in a way, UPM is even more insidious – because algorithms can divine the most addictive source of media for every individual with a screen and feed that addiction in every waking hour.

UPM has several tell-tale signs, but it’s typically a quick video hit (a few seconds) of entertainment, often with a bit of shock value to add spice. Probably the leading sign you are consuming UPM is that you feel the desire to consume it, coupled with very little memory of what you DID consume hours or even minutes after the fact.

The evidence is still mounting on how dangerous this is for our overall health, but I’d wager that when all the studies are complete, we will know that the answer is VERY dangerous. And while we would like to convince ourselves that this is only a problem for our kids, that is almost certainly wishful thinking.

So, what’s the optimum amount of UPM in a media diet? Probably as close to zero as you can get. Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t consume it, but just like alcohol or tobacco, we should do so knowing the risks.

Media Meal Planning

Research clearly shows that people who plan their meals are generally healthier and more able to maintain a healthy weight. Similarly, people who have some measure of planning in the media they consume may have better mental health outcomes.

This translates into three elements. First, plan how much media you will consume overall (across the web, social media, and more traditional sources), second, consider how your consumption will break down across the information, education, and entertainment categories; and third, minimize consumption of UPM.

The specifics of how this works will depend on your desires and goals, but thoughtfully planning your media consumption can significantly affect whether those goals are met.

Why I Believe This Matters

In researching this article and our BillionMinders more broadly, I’ve become increasingly concerned about how media consumption affects us. As a society, we spend hours every day consuming some sort of media. Whether we accept it or not, it changes not just what we think but how we think. Today, trillions of dollars are invested every year with one goal: to ensure your attention belongs to Big Tech every waking minute of it.

The casualties of all this are often an inability to reach our goals, to connect in person, and perhaps most worryingly, our mental health.

And, of course, this has led me to consider my own bad habits. I spend too much time consuming media and not enough time pausing to reflect on what I’ve consumed. I’m a news junkie who could spend that time getting more educational content, or even off media entirely, connecting with friends. And while my consumption of UPM is not as high as some, I’m now hyper-aware of its existence, waiting to suck me in.

I hope that as you reflect on this piece of content, it might spark thoughts on changes you would like to make. Your future self may just thank you for it.