Everyone is familiar with the old adage, “You are what you eat.” It’s a simple concept that science has proven countless times through endless experiments. While we readily accept — even if we don’t embrace via our eating habits — I’m not certain we understand this is also true regarding what we consume mentally.
In recent days my mind has been greatly informed and influenced by the writings of Dr. Alan Levinovitz, Professor of Religion, James Madison University and Leonard Sweet, Professor Emeritus at Drew Theological School at Drew University. Both of whom have written extensively about the detrimental influence digital junk food — the current buzzword is AI slop — is having upon our minds. Not our physical brains per se — thought the physical changes certainly shape the cognitive abilities — but our ways and abilities to think.
Levinovitz cautions, “Ultra-processed information is hijacking our appetites much like ultra-processed snacks do.” In his essay titled “The Info Equivalent of Junk Food”, Levinovitz warns:
“Only a few decades ago, Type 2 diabetes was known as adult-onset diabetes. Now, rates of “adult-onset” diabetes are increasing at 5 percent per year for youths under age 20. And this isn’t just in the United States. Overconsumption of calories is becoming an international health crisis.
Though many factors are involved, a major one is what some call ultra-processed foods. Ubiquitous and compulsively consumable, these calorie-dense foods are engineered to hijack our natural appetites and keep us eating. Manufactured on an industrial scale, they’re extremely cheap and virtually effortless to consume. Just pop the can or tear open the package.
It’s too late to prevent the health crisis caused by these foods, but learning from it can help prevent another crisis in the making, caused by a remarkably similar product: ultra-processed information.
Like ultra-processed food, ultra-processed information is ubiquitous, cheap, formulated for compulsive consumption, and dangerous in large quantities. And it works by hijacking similar features of our biology.
What is the information version of fat, salt, and sugar? Warnings of imminent danger. Certainty about what’s dangerous or what’s safe. Simplistic myths of good and evil, Us and Them. Symbols of identity and belonging. Shortcuts to health, wealth, and happiness. Salacious gossip. Pornography.
These ingredients have always been with us, just as fat, salt, and sugar have. But in the same way that new technology dramatically expanded the possible combinations of those food ingredients, along with the potential for mass production, the same is happening with information. From social media to ChatGPT, the options for combining and distributing the building blocks are proliferating, perfectly tailored to our tastes, and ubiquitously — even freely — available.”
What you let in is what forms you, shapes and molds you. It is quite literally, in formation. So how are we being formed?
▪ Rising levels of anxiety.
▪ Unsustainable political polarization.
▪ Ignorance about our ideological opponents.
▪ Reflexive suspicion of expertise that contradicts our prior convictions.
▪ Proliferation of conspiracy theories.
▪ Compulsive consumption of social media.
▪ Replacement of friends and family with fragile online communities.
Leonard Sweet refers to this as “algorithmic possession” and said the solution is “algorithmic exorcisms.” He goes on to say, “Not polite boundaries. Not wellness platitudes. But ruthless spiritual counter-practices of detoxification and liberation. Here is the truth we can no longer avoid: What you attend to, you become. Clicks are prayers. Every scroll is a creed. Clicks train the imagination and shape the soul. Starve the tragedy porn. Unsubscribe from trauma traps. Refuse rage bait. Block deceit spirals. Curate not just your information—but your formation. And this is where Jesus enters, not as content, but as counter-code. Jesus offers tov—the ancient Hebrew triad of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness—as the original and ultimate algorithm for a healthy and sacred life.”
Curate your formation. Where algorithms deform, Jesus re-forms.
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