A Healthy Bite-Sized Digital Lifestyle

A few of you including Roger von Oech have put this Wired Article on my radar.  It talks about the "mini-culture" that has been developing in recent years comparing it to a pervasive "snacking type of behavior".  This is nothing new as part of my job is to analyze and understand this and the role brands can play in this space.  In fact, we used this same exact analogy when coming up with the GameTap site re-design where we transformed the homepage from a passive experience to a "bite sized" sampling of some select games and multimedia features.

The snacking behavior phenomena begs the following questions:

1. Is snacking all day bad for us?
2. Do we have time for "full meals" anymore?
3. Are we sacrificing depth for breadth?

Let's start here going with the nutrition analogy for a moment.  Snacking throughout the day is only bad for us if we are taking in junk food while throwing discipline out the window.  In fact, most nutritionists suggest that snacking on healthy items such as carrots or broccoli helps curb our appetites and eat smaller, healthier meals during meal times.  One of the worst things we can do for our bodies is starve ourselves during the day and gorge ourselves in the evening before going to bed.

Think about this in terms of your own internet usage habits.

So let’s go with the assumption that snacking isn’t bad if you are smart about it. Now what?  If we are snacking through the day—does this mean that we can’t appreciate an exquisite meal now and then?  No, I think that a substantial meal can and will always be appreciated as long as you are a “smart snacker” meaning you don’t substitute your snacking for a good meal.  If anything, you have more appreciation for it.

So are we sacrificing depth for breadth?  Maybe.  Again it comes down to choice.  Certainly blogs, and other shorthand forms of communications which have surged in popularity tell us something about ourselves and our attention spans.  But maybe there is a new reality of bite sized content being extremely effective.  Sure, we want people to read our books and watch our hour long TV shows including all the commercials—but we can’t FORCE them to.  If they want bite-sized nuggets it’s better than nothing.  And maybe we should be thinking about how we can serve up healthy bite-sized content and experiences?

I recently finished Made to Stick.  It was a meal, with generous portions and substance.  It took me a bit to get through it.  Is this so bad?  Look at it this way—if I were to sit down at a fine meal that someone had just prepared, would it be good manners to wolf it down without conversation?  Or would it be better to savor every last bite over some good conversation and a glass or two of Chianti.

So, what does it come down to.  Does the “snack economy” mean were all becoming stupid?  Well, I guess if we’re snacking on junk food—then maybe the answer is yes.  But what if we are supplementing our diet with healthy snacks that help get us through the day?  I don’t know about you—but after a really full meal I feel sluggish and can’t think clearly.

I don’t have a clear answer here but a suggestion.  Our behavior seems to be changing.  We’re becoming snackers vs. the predictable three square meal model.  It’s almost inevitable that this happened given advances in technology.  If this were not the case—there would be no need to support our traditional media offerings with blogs feeds,—or put our content into bite sized nuggets.

But, maybe all it comes down to is being careful not to spoil our appetites.  Exercising some restraint and avoiding the "bad snacks" which taste good but have no nutritional value.  If we can do this—we'll get more out of media whether it’s analog or digital.  And how can you tell when something is “junk food”?  That’s easy.  You feel like crap about 5 minutes after eating it.

Oh, BTW in an effort to practice what I’m preaching, I’ve written this post during my lunch break so tonight I can avoid “gorging” on digital media.  Maybe I’ll just have a light snack instead.

Comments

[Roger von Oech]

Interesting post and analogies.

The point I've made with you (in private) and in posts and comments other places is that as one's attention span gets shorter and shorter, the more difficult it becomes to do sustained, focused work — which I believe is necessary for anyone who wishes to actually create worthwhile things.

Here are several questions I invite your readers to themselves: "How many of you have read more than 20 books in the past year? How many novels have you read?" It takes concentration to read, but the rewards are worth it.

You mentioned "Made to Stick." I believe that the "S" in the Heath Brothers' "SUCCES" acronym is "Story." Fiction is a great place to pick up ideas about story and narrative.

[DA]

"as one's attention span gets shorter and shorter, the more difficult it becomes to do sustained, focused work — which I believe is necessary for anyone who wishes to actually create worthwhile things."

I agree 100% Roger and it's one of the reasons I never multi-task (not that I even have a choice in the matter, I can't do it if I tried)

But this post takes our conversation into an entirely different direction. What I'm questioning here is the value of bite sized content. A lot of folks see no value in things like blogs or Twitter because they don't go deep.

Truth be told there is a lot of junk out there. But what I'm posing is the question—can this behavior be good for use if we avoid the "junk"?

[John Young]

Let me tell you about my own project that's done in reaction to exactly what you're describing: the Guerilla Drive-In (guerilla drive in dot com), where I show a feature movie using a 16MM projector and an AM radio transmitter once a month from the sidecar of my 1977 BMW motorcycle. At secret locations, and you have to complete a scavenger hunt in order to get on the notification list that tells you what's being shown, and where.

So why go to all this trouble to show Smokey and the Bandit using a heavy, clunky, and old Eiki classroom projector, when you could get the DVD from Netflix any day of the week -- or watch your favorite scenes on YouTube, just a mouse-twitch away?

Because it's more *fun* when it's inconvenient. There's a role for the knee-jerk interaction, and there's a role for a full-on Pain In The Ass community event that's hard to sign up for. As someone who pushes pixels for a living, it's very cathartic to have to grease up the belts on a recalcitrant projector. Every time the credits roll, it's a victory.

All things in moderation. Including moderation :)

[Bob LeDrew]

The Current on CBC Radio did a piece on this article this morning. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/media/200703/20070315thecurrent_sec3.ram Interesting concepts.

And John Young -- I have a Blackberry, an iPod, and I write with fountain pens. How's that for mixing technologies.

[John Young]

Bob, I'm totally with you on the "mixing technologies" thing. You've got two kinds of speech, now: Blackberry speech: "please send powerpoint deck to me asap kthxbye" and Fountain Pen speech: "Dear Liesl: it is withe great pleasure that I take pen in hand and write to you about..."

Not that you wouldn't dash off a shopping list with a gold nib, of course, or compose a novel with two muscular thumbs. And I _also_ don't want to get off on the red herring that IM speech, or Twitter speech -- the short-format nuggets that make up so much of the Internet -- are less important, or valuable. Or that they require less craft; there's something satisfying about sending a four-word message in the status line, followed by the "[eom]"; a perfect little jewel of efficiency.

I guess I'm just underscoring the point we all agree on -- there's a time for hitting balls over the net with speed and efficiency, and there's a time for going and sitting in the corner for a long time and thinking.

[Glen Chiacchieri]

I like the metaphor Ze Frank uses. There's a lot more content to consume now, which he likens to a dirty glass. Instead of a tiny pane of glass as before, you now have this huge pane of glass that's all dirty and you have to go looking for the small clean spots (good content, but small). There's a lot more so we have to be choosy about which spots we look through.

[Greg Verdino]

DA - You know you'll gorge yourself tonight anyway. :-) Ran an informal media snacking poll, inspired by the Wired story and something Mark Cuban wrote on the same topic at around the same time. The results (scientific of course!) show that most of us aren't just snacking but gorging ourselves on both snacks and meals:

http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/2007/02/media_snacking_.html

And then the following day I discovered a great media snacking video from a British organization called MediaSnackers, devoted to studying this behavior and helping companies understand how youth consume media:

http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/2007/02/a_second_helpin.html

Thought your readers might enjoy the added snack attack.

[Lori Magno]

I'm trying to stay focused on the "snacking" concept and not, as my husband repeats (frequently) my digital ADD. If I was able to visit all of my favorite blogs daily and comment fully (as a Digital BFF should do) and my news feeds, and my design spots and the weather channel, I would be unable to do the work of The Digitas. And that would be bad as The Digitas provides a lovely lifestyle for me. I'm avoiding the Twitter for now, but I hear its siren song...

[Tom Haskins]

First: is there a trend among the trendy? Of course. Wired tracks the flight path of the high churnian candidates. Early adopters are early quitters. You're seeing Twitter evolve from shallow distractions to deeper, more functional uses -- just like I'm seeing with blogging. Second Life is transitioning from a high volume of look-see visitors to the regulars who build on their islands slowly and surely. So I suspect that Wired's "snack minifesto" is capturing a market segment that's always on the move. That segment abuses their bodies as well as their minds. It's about "testing the limits" and "dismissing the risks". So inside your analogy -- alas it is poor nutrition, eating habits and effects on appetite -- for those thrill crazed, techie, new toy addicts. So be it.

In thinking about creating value, greater functionality and stable demand, I suspect there's more fertile ground in issues of context and user control than in bite-size products and snacking behaviors. This post of yours gave me a lot to reflect upon (thanks!). I then noticed how valuable your writing seemed to me. The value in it, and the uses I'm making of it don't seem related to how bite-size it is. There's a context I bring to it that defines the uses it is to me. I'm taking from it what I want to get out of it. I do the same with a full course meal (like an entire book - Made To Stick) or a single blog post. I don't need Pizza Rolls to help me eat. I can take a chomp a bite out of a deep dish pizza to get a mouthful. (user control)

I got the picture of wanting to be well informed in my situation that equates with being well fed in your analogy. Wanting to be well informed applies to those new uses being made of Twitter when attending conventions and catching airplanes (context). If I'm being intensely creative, I'll want a very different kind of input (as Roger suggests here) than if I am looking for examples of a concept I'm explaining. Blogs and wiki are like libraries and buffets. I can find what I need because so much choice is available that's valuable to me and to others with very different needs. My context determines what is valuable to me amongst the vast field of offerings. I don't need the content to be tailored to my context or spoon fed me to avoid my chomping as big a bite as I want of whatever fits my latest search.

[michael jones]

We should have health culture. It is very important! Healthy lifestyle define our future!