The Information Diet

Chapter 6. The Symptoms of Information Obesity

“There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.”

—Kent Farnsworth, summarizing his father Philo Farnsworth’s view on the device he invented: the television^[62]

My wife Roz is actually three people: there’s Normal Roz, there’s Email Roz, and there’s Zombie Roz. Let me explain.

Normal Roz is a sharp-as-a-tack, sweet-as-a-pixie-stick, pretty-as-they-make-’em woman. She loves the outdoors, loves to garden, and loves to get her hands dirty. She combines a French love for life with the German love of hard work and efficiency. She’s been known to say to me, whilst I’m in the midst of enjoying the miracles of central air conditioning: “Clay, yard work is just like that video game you’re playing, except with a productive outcome.”

But should she run across a computer screen on her way outside to try to plant corn in our 16-square-foot back yard, it’s over. Especially if an email window is open. She will sit down in front of her computer, and (according to her) time no longer exists. Hours later, she’ll look up at me, eyes bloodshot, and wonder why I’m asking her to come to bed. Time stands still for her, the day passes, and she has no idea where it went. Email Roz has no sense of time. I won’t lie—sometimes when she wants me to go do yard work I have left a laptop open between her and the door. Works every time.

But the scary Roz is Zombie Roz. Normal Roz can be ...