ou will probably spend around seven hours online today. That’s the global average. What does all this time say about you?
We’ve been conditioned to automatically see that question through the extractive, advertising-oriented lens of Big Tech. Measuring how we spend our time, and understanding what we’re passionate about, only to sell us things, is one of the most perverse undervaluations and misrepresentations in modern history. Look at it another way, and you’ll see why.
Over the course of your life you will spend as much time consuming content—articles, papers, videos, podcasts, books—and the discussions around it, as you would studying for about four college degrees. Often via content directly created or curated by known experts.
What do you have to show for it? Why does everyone else have data to show your passions and commitment—from advertisers to publishers—but you don’t?
We are in a knowledge economy. Valuing our attention and time accordingly could transform everything. First and foremost, it could change how we think about education.
Rethinking Education
Today there are 1.2 billion information workers and over 220 million students who spend over $1 trillion every year to formally signal their knowledge and credibility on subjects they care about. They do this through degrees, certificates, and memberships, all of which are poor representations of what we actually know or are passionate about. It is telling that so many professionals are compelled to spend significant additional time and energy, on an ongoing basis, desperately posturing online, via LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters. Trying to convey ongoing credibility or growth, using only a fraction of the materials from all that self-directed learning.
Imagine using the data that’s so often siphoned away from us, about our interests and committed time and contributions, instead to build data-driven intellectual portfolios. Letting anyone safely and selectively convey their commitment and credibility on any subject, in a way that is transparent, shows our application, and is expert and industry affiliated. It immediately draws a sharp contrast to how we show our learning today: a usually outdated line item focused more on your alma mater’s brand than showing your actual learning and its relevance.
Look deeper and the impact is even greater. There are over 1 billion people globally who can’t afford to be part of that $1 trillion spent, yet have access to the internet’s wealth of information, full of expert content and recommendations. What would it mean to them, to be able to easily formalize their self-directed learning in a presentable way? What about the untold number of ultra-talented individuals who simply don’t fit into the education system as we know it, usually because they’re autodidactic and grossly mislabeled by a system that sees them as inadequate or unqualified.
Seeing our relationship with the information commons in this new way is empowering, and along the way it goes even further: it fundamentally shifts how we value and experience the internet itself.
Rethinking Trust
In a crisis of trust, understanding who deserves our engagement can change the world.
Becoming better at signaling our knowledge can not only unlock newfound opportunity for billions of people, it can also transform the dynamics of our public sphere. Earning somebody’s trust around a certain subject area isn’t just for the job market. It’s also a matter of everyday life. In a world reeling from the effects of online platforms that deliberately amplify uninformed and inflammatory perspectives, this has never been more valuable.
First, consider what this would mean for social media platforms, where power is currently only earned and assigned through volume. You can be the most ill-informed person on a matter, but if you can get enough likes or followers, you’ll be at the top of every thread on the subject. It’s this very system of quantity-over-quality reward that is upstream of the social dysfunction we’re witnessing. The internet is the nervous system of our modern world, and we are prioritizing whatever makes it most inflamed, not what makes it most well-informed.
By valuing our data to present ourselves, it opens up an entirely new way of structuring popularity and power, where power isn’t awarded only through the quantity of attention you get, but also how you can show the quality of attention you give: how you’ve informed yourself on a subject.
Below is the Twitter feed as it looks today. Just like on all social media platforms, a user’s prominence is based on how many likes and replies they get. Whether they’re trustworthy, in general, let alone on the subject being discussed, is entirely irrelevant. What’s more, who those likes or comments are coming from also doesn’t matter. Yet we wonder why platforms are so often a toxic cesspool of noise.
Seen through this new lens, where we can use our commitment and relationship to the information commons as a form of identity, these things are easily remedied.
Despite having fewer likes, a trusted user is shown first, and labeled: attention given (“well-informed”, which can be hovered to reveal their relevant info sources and time invested), and their impact on others’ attention (“helpful”, also transparently browsable). A user with more likes, yet who has shown participation to be wary of, is shown last and with a faint warning stripe. Participation to be wary of can include: high ratio of inflammatory language, above average ratio of sharing or liking misinformation or polarization sources (which themselves are transparently labeled with reasoning and evidence), frequent spammy or low-quality participation, or strongly biased record of media interactions.
This is all data that exists and is easily identified, but is currently only used against us, rather than for us. This extends to how mindfully or mindlessly we engage, and how it affects us.
Beyond how you present yourself outwardly, how do you understand yourself inwardly? What if all that data were used to provide you with insights, rather than some advertiser? Insights like a Fitbit for your information diet. To be effortlessly equipped to understand how the content you’re consuming is likely affecting your mood, how many times you were deliberately agitated, how your bias is shifting, who owns the media you consume, the diversity of cultural perspectives represented, and more.
Today we are in a designed crisis of information asymmetry, one that we can fix. Doing so is the ultimate empowerment we can offer the citizens of our modern society.
Signaling Knowledge
This reframing of our data and relationship with information is ultimately a democratization of how we signal knowledge—and that has economic power, far more than simply using your data to also sell yourself out for a few advertising dollars. Such an approach, which is all too common, is allowing ourselves to fall prey to the same myopic view we have been undervalued with until now.
If we enable people to more effectively demonstrate their commitment and added value across any subject, we can go much further instead: letting people set a price on their time, against their expressed capabilities, just like any other marketplace. When we think of the economic motivation for educating oneself, this would allow us to close the economic loop between learning and earning like never before.
All of this—how we can transform education, the internet, and economic liberation—comes down to one simple question: how will we choose to value our passions and time, through the information medium tying us all together? The data already exists, the time is already being spent, we merely need to shift how we choose to value it all. For addition, instead of extraction.
If we can make this shift, we will watch a smarter, more rational, more inclusive, and more prosperous world bloom.
a global affairs media network
Transforming Our Relationship with Information
Photo via Adobe Stock.
January 17, 2023
You will probably spend around seven hours online today—that’s the global average. Over the course of your life, you will spend as much time consuming content as you would studying for about four college degrees, and we need to change how we show that, writes Readocracy CEO Mario Vasilescu.
Y
ou will probably spend around seven hours online today. That’s the global average. What does all this time say about you?
We’ve been conditioned to automatically see that question through the extractive, advertising-oriented lens of Big Tech. Measuring how we spend our time, and understanding what we’re passionate about, only to sell us things, is one of the most perverse undervaluations and misrepresentations in modern history. Look at it another way, and you’ll see why.
Over the course of your life you will spend as much time consuming content—articles, papers, videos, podcasts, books—and the discussions around it, as you would studying for about four college degrees. Often via content directly created or curated by known experts.
What do you have to show for it? Why does everyone else have data to show your passions and commitment—from advertisers to publishers—but you don’t?
We are in a knowledge economy. Valuing our attention and time accordingly could transform everything. First and foremost, it could change how we think about education.
Rethinking Education
Today there are 1.2 billion information workers and over 220 million students who spend over $1 trillion every year to formally signal their knowledge and credibility on subjects they care about. They do this through degrees, certificates, and memberships, all of which are poor representations of what we actually know or are passionate about. It is telling that so many professionals are compelled to spend significant additional time and energy, on an ongoing basis, desperately posturing online, via LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters. Trying to convey ongoing credibility or growth, using only a fraction of the materials from all that self-directed learning.
Imagine using the data that’s so often siphoned away from us, about our interests and committed time and contributions, instead to build data-driven intellectual portfolios. Letting anyone safely and selectively convey their commitment and credibility on any subject, in a way that is transparent, shows our application, and is expert and industry affiliated. It immediately draws a sharp contrast to how we show our learning today: a usually outdated line item focused more on your alma mater’s brand than showing your actual learning and its relevance.
Look deeper and the impact is even greater. There are over 1 billion people globally who can’t afford to be part of that $1 trillion spent, yet have access to the internet’s wealth of information, full of expert content and recommendations. What would it mean to them, to be able to easily formalize their self-directed learning in a presentable way? What about the untold number of ultra-talented individuals who simply don’t fit into the education system as we know it, usually because they’re autodidactic and grossly mislabeled by a system that sees them as inadequate or unqualified.
Seeing our relationship with the information commons in this new way is empowering, and along the way it goes even further: it fundamentally shifts how we value and experience the internet itself.
Rethinking Trust
In a crisis of trust, understanding who deserves our engagement can change the world.
Becoming better at signaling our knowledge can not only unlock newfound opportunity for billions of people, it can also transform the dynamics of our public sphere. Earning somebody’s trust around a certain subject area isn’t just for the job market. It’s also a matter of everyday life. In a world reeling from the effects of online platforms that deliberately amplify uninformed and inflammatory perspectives, this has never been more valuable.
First, consider what this would mean for social media platforms, where power is currently only earned and assigned through volume. You can be the most ill-informed person on a matter, but if you can get enough likes or followers, you’ll be at the top of every thread on the subject. It’s this very system of quantity-over-quality reward that is upstream of the social dysfunction we’re witnessing. The internet is the nervous system of our modern world, and we are prioritizing whatever makes it most inflamed, not what makes it most well-informed.
By valuing our data to present ourselves, it opens up an entirely new way of structuring popularity and power, where power isn’t awarded only through the quantity of attention you get, but also how you can show the quality of attention you give: how you’ve informed yourself on a subject.
Below is the Twitter feed as it looks today. Just like on all social media platforms, a user’s prominence is based on how many likes and replies they get. Whether they’re trustworthy, in general, let alone on the subject being discussed, is entirely irrelevant. What’s more, who those likes or comments are coming from also doesn’t matter. Yet we wonder why platforms are so often a toxic cesspool of noise.
Seen through this new lens, where we can use our commitment and relationship to the information commons as a form of identity, these things are easily remedied.
Despite having fewer likes, a trusted user is shown first, and labeled: attention given (“well-informed”, which can be hovered to reveal their relevant info sources and time invested), and their impact on others’ attention (“helpful”, also transparently browsable). A user with more likes, yet who has shown participation to be wary of, is shown last and with a faint warning stripe. Participation to be wary of can include: high ratio of inflammatory language, above average ratio of sharing or liking misinformation or polarization sources (which themselves are transparently labeled with reasoning and evidence), frequent spammy or low-quality participation, or strongly biased record of media interactions.
This is all data that exists and is easily identified, but is currently only used against us, rather than for us. This extends to how mindfully or mindlessly we engage, and how it affects us.
Beyond how you present yourself outwardly, how do you understand yourself inwardly? What if all that data were used to provide you with insights, rather than some advertiser? Insights like a Fitbit for your information diet. To be effortlessly equipped to understand how the content you’re consuming is likely affecting your mood, how many times you were deliberately agitated, how your bias is shifting, who owns the media you consume, the diversity of cultural perspectives represented, and more.
Today we are in a designed crisis of information asymmetry, one that we can fix. Doing so is the ultimate empowerment we can offer the citizens of our modern society.
Signaling Knowledge
This reframing of our data and relationship with information is ultimately a democratization of how we signal knowledge—and that has economic power, far more than simply using your data to also sell yourself out for a few advertising dollars. Such an approach, which is all too common, is allowing ourselves to fall prey to the same myopic view we have been undervalued with until now.
If we enable people to more effectively demonstrate their commitment and added value across any subject, we can go much further instead: letting people set a price on their time, against their expressed capabilities, just like any other marketplace. When we think of the economic motivation for educating oneself, this would allow us to close the economic loop between learning and earning like never before.
All of this—how we can transform education, the internet, and economic liberation—comes down to one simple question: how will we choose to value our passions and time, through the information medium tying us all together? The data already exists, the time is already being spent, we merely need to shift how we choose to value it all. For addition, instead of extraction.
If we can make this shift, we will watch a smarter, more rational, more inclusive, and more prosperous world bloom.
