magine, for a second, living in a world where nutrition science was never created. Fast food, junk food, and ultra processed food producers could use the most addictive ingredients, no matter how toxic. They could sell these in tantalizing packaging that made no mention of what was inside. All while flooding us with advertisements that pull us deeper into dependency. Without nutrition science, nobody would know any better—not parents, not their children—and no regulations could exist to force a change.
Similarly, imagine a world where environmental science never evolved. Without an ability to measure the environment, holding polluters responsible would be impossible. No matter how much the locals cough, how will you prove liability in court?
This is our present reality, with minor differences. Instead of how we feed our bodies, we’re operating blind around how we feed our minds. Instead of our physical environment, we’re oblivious to the state of the figurative air, water, and ground of our shared mental environment.
In other words, we are living in a world that is missing a critical science. Congressional hearings, family tragedies, and studies prove its absence. They are all merely point–in–time anecdotes with no underlying system of repeatable measurement.
Without measurement, you can’t have standards on which to base regulations. What are the units of measure to sample the “air” of Instagram, or the output of a hyper–polarizing mega influencer so they can be held accountable accordingly? What are the units of measure to help individuals understand what they’re ingesting, transparently identifying the components in real time, and the likely effects on their anxiety, depression, anger, paranoia?
More importantly, without completely transparent, defensible standards, any effort to regulate platforms or bad actors will be, rightfully, seen as politically motivated censorship, a fact that is eagerly weaponized by these very same targets of accountability.
If we want to have any hope of salvaging the information commons, our shared reality, we need a new science of “infotrition.” Machine learning–driven standards that help us repeatably, reliably, transparently, and neutrally assess the composition of our media in real time—from agitation levels, to violence, depression, paranoia, and other reliable “ingredients” to be discovered. Only then can we create common sense policy baselines that can effectively be enforced and defended in a way that everyone can see and verify, in real time, for themselves.
In a world of manipulation and shifting baselines, the key to reclaiming our shared reality lies in finding undeniable common ground—and that begins with making it identifiable in the first place.
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Information is health, make “infotrition” a science
Image via Adobe Stock.
November 4, 2025
If we want to have a clean and healthy digital information commons, we need a way to transparently, reliably, effectively assess the composition of our media in real time. Doing that requires we create the science of infotrition, writes Mario Vasilescu.
I
magine, for a second, living in a world where nutrition science was never created. Fast food, junk food, and ultra processed food producers could use the most addictive ingredients, no matter how toxic. They could sell these in tantalizing packaging that made no mention of what was inside. All while flooding us with advertisements that pull us deeper into dependency. Without nutrition science, nobody would know any better—not parents, not their children—and no regulations could exist to force a change.
Similarly, imagine a world where environmental science never evolved. Without an ability to measure the environment, holding polluters responsible would be impossible. No matter how much the locals cough, how will you prove liability in court?
This is our present reality, with minor differences. Instead of how we feed our bodies, we’re operating blind around how we feed our minds. Instead of our physical environment, we’re oblivious to the state of the figurative air, water, and ground of our shared mental environment.
In other words, we are living in a world that is missing a critical science. Congressional hearings, family tragedies, and studies prove its absence. They are all merely point–in–time anecdotes with no underlying system of repeatable measurement.
Without measurement, you can’t have standards on which to base regulations. What are the units of measure to sample the “air” of Instagram, or the output of a hyper–polarizing mega influencer so they can be held accountable accordingly? What are the units of measure to help individuals understand what they’re ingesting, transparently identifying the components in real time, and the likely effects on their anxiety, depression, anger, paranoia?
More importantly, without completely transparent, defensible standards, any effort to regulate platforms or bad actors will be, rightfully, seen as politically motivated censorship, a fact that is eagerly weaponized by these very same targets of accountability.
If we want to have any hope of salvaging the information commons, our shared reality, we need a new science of “infotrition.” Machine learning–driven standards that help us repeatably, reliably, transparently, and neutrally assess the composition of our media in real time—from agitation levels, to violence, depression, paranoia, and other reliable “ingredients” to be discovered. Only then can we create common sense policy baselines that can effectively be enforced and defended in a way that everyone can see and verify, in real time, for themselves.
In a world of manipulation and shifting baselines, the key to reclaiming our shared reality lies in finding undeniable common ground—and that begins with making it identifiable in the first place.
