If ever there was a prescient term for the times we now live in, it’s GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
First mentioned in the 1950s, it is essentially the concept of consuming flawed or biased information resulting in a similar flawed output or thought process; or, in modern-day terms, if you consume enough shit, your mind will be nothing but shit, spewing shit all the day long.
These days, we consume garbage on an industrial scale via computers, and that tiny, addictive little machine almost all of us have: your smartphone. Garbage is forced down our throats whenever we access a search engine (look folks, have we got a banal story for you!), clickbait that is more Max Headroom than max knowledge. Social Media loves to slop it into our minds as we search for the next Dua Lipa song, as we watch basketball highlights and swipe for trailers for the next big thing.
But don’t kid yourselves, you search for this crap just as much as it’s thrust upon you.
Like fast food and sugary snacks, the more we feed on information garbage, the happier we think we are. Which is also garbage. We’re not happy, we’re no less addicted than that poor slob who does no exercise but consumes chocolate bars by the ton and sugary drinks by the gallon. The difference is, we’re rotting our brains more than we’re rotting our teeth or hearts. Which, when you think about it, is no different to the slob.
Yeah, we’re information slobs, and there’s more of us than you think, me included.
No stranger to emotions and mental health, it became obvious to me that if I wanted to write again, I needed to get into shape, like the road runner picking up his shoes again after years off that tarmac mile. And a writing career - a good writing career - is as much about being mentally and physically healthy as it is about being a good writer. You don't get given those writing chops, you develop them, from graft, from the Art and from being physically able to do the Art.
So recently, I decided to get my mind into shape by ditching most search engines, putting app timers on those I can’t completely do without, and training myself out of the habit of clicking because they’ve baited me with an interesting headline (which are most often misleading). Now I don't click because of a good picture, or by announcing something controversial. I give most news headlines the scepticism they deserve. (And, many news vendors are resorting to clickbait these days, ones I used to have respect for - they are all at it; garbage bylines, peddling rubbish that has no respectful place).
So, begone trash-media! You have no value here! And while this discipline has driven out really bad, modern habits, it's replaced them with much healthier and more positive behaviours.
Now I’m reading more books, fiction and non-fiction, and learning more because of it. I'm playing fewer games designed to waste my time, watching fewer things that offer nothing to the world beyond a shrug and a momentary sugary treat of distraction.
And I’m happier. My mind feels healthier.
The internet wasn't designed to be the biggest waste of life in human history, even if that's what it's turned into. It was meant to, with moderation, expand our minds with pure knowledge, not fill them with garbage. The sooner we, as a society, realise that, the happier we can be.
And we can, trust me. I’m not a doctor. I don’t need to be.
You just need to use your common sense to see that if you only consume garbage, then that’s all you’ll ever be.
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