The unread badges that feel like progress
A friend and I were talking about information sources one afternoon when I noticed his phone. Every app seemed to be sitting at 99+ notifications. He said they were updates from channels and services he had subscribed to; whenever he had time, he would open them and read. I pointed out that he clearly wasn’t keeping up: the badges were piling up faster than he could read. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to clear them. At this point, just seeing the notifications seemed to reassure him that he still had the urge to learn.
He subscribes to almost anything, always on the promise that he’ll study it when he has more time. Yet he is also extremely selective about his sources. The information has to be useful, and it has to inspire him to learn. So the subscriptions multiply, while the time to read them never appears. Somehow, having all that material waiting feels like a positive sign.
I suggested a simple experiment: starting today, read ten new posts a day and write one sentence about what he understood. He said he had no time. But wasn’t the whole point of saving all this stuff to learn when he did have time? Then he started worrying that ten a day would take ages to get through, especially since hundreds more could arrive each day.
Forget fear of missing out. This is FOMO in its final form. At least the 99+ badges still give him a little comfort.
A desert made of information
That same friend kept coming back to the question of whether something was “useful.” But his idea of usefulness was strangely narrow. If a channel he followed occasionally discussed something he disagreed with, didn’t care about, or found contrary to his beliefs, he could decide immediately that the channel was useless.
Isn’t that how confirmation bias turns into a little prison of its own? We naturally gravitate toward views that resemble ours, often without even noticing. The difference is whether we ever stop and ask why someone might hold a different view.
People often dismiss that kind of reflection as a waste of time. Ask an AI how to deal with FOMO and it may offer a tidy list: distinguish information from knowledge, build a filtering system, refuse to become a node in the algorithm, practise delayed gratification, and so on. Those suggestions may sound sensible, but they don’t get to the heart of the problem: what is the anxiety actually about?
What am I trying to get from knowledge?
Do I want to know more than other people? Do I want to use what I learn in a practical situation? Am I still acting like a student who believes that taking enough notes proves how hard they worked?
Knowledge is not a shortcut. Learning one sentence does not mean you understand an entire book, any more than watching a five-minute recap means you have watched a whole film. Shortcuts can create a temporary feeling of efficiency, but that feeling is not the same as understanding.
If a sentence makes you curious about a book or a film, will you spend the time to read or watch the whole thing?
Am I using knowledge to avoid feeling and responding?
As one line from The More Knowledge, the More Depraved puts it: “As ‘feeling’ and ‘response’ grow further apart, people instinctively flee into knowledge to find a sense of existence. They imagine that the more they know and understand, the better they can see the world.”
That doesn’t mean everyone who pursues knowledge is running away from something. But it is worth asking: what might you be avoiding?
When I began writing every day, plenty of people mocked the idea. They said you couldn’t write daily without first building up a deep reserve of experience and material. When I completed my first 500 days, those people still hadn’t written anything. They were still getting ready.
Knowledge can numb us by endlessly postponing the moment when we have to respond. Since it takes a long time to accumulate knowledge and produce something from it, we tell ourselves that the day to act will come eventually—and that we can keep waiting for it forever.
Am I interested only in what confirms my own views?
Confirmation bias is not simply about seeking out opinions that support our own. It is also about caring so much about being supported that we ignore or downplay anything that doesn’t agree with us.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being focused on yourself. But left unchecked, that habit can gradually trap you in an echo chamber.
At university, I once caused an uproar at a book club by criticizing people who rushed to organize a discussion as soon as they finished a book. Sharing what they had learned, I argued, was not necessarily learning. Sometimes the point seemed to be: Look at me. I finished the book. Now I know more than you.
That brings us back to the purpose of knowledge. Are we treating information as proof that we possess knowledge, or as an idea that needs time, reflection, and practical experience to test it? There isn’t one right answer; it depends on what a person chooses to do with what they learn.
Feeling, knowledge, and response all matter. Cut off any one of them—or pursue only one—and you can end up adrift in an ocean of information. A friend in the comments once gave this condition a name I thought was exactly right: a knowledge desert.
In that desert, do you keep heading toward the mirage, or stop, turn around, and ask again what knowledge is for?
Nothing you don’t think about will be useful to you
Many people are always asking, “What does this have to do with me?” If they decide something is irrelevant, they shut off the source. But can someone who doesn’t own a dog still learn something from people who do?
The underlying logic of one situation can often illuminate another. Imagine designing a daycare for children. Of course, caring for the children is essential. But if you’re designing the service, you also need to understand why parents choose to leave their children in someone else’s care. What do they need from the arrangement? They may need a temporary break from parenting, for all sorts of reasons. Understanding that need—and what parents hope to get from the time away—is part of designing the service.
Someone might object that good parents would never want to get away from their children. Then they can look after the children themselves. But lack of time or energy isn’t a universal objective fact; people make choices about work, careers, and other commitments, sometimes choosing a path that leaves less time for family.
That is where the deeper usefulness lies. A daycare’s visible purpose is to care for children. Its design may also need to address a parent’s guilt about leaving them, or help parents make the most of the time apart. Some island resorts, for example, offer childcare so parents can spend the day on vacation without having to think about the children. The hotels organize games and activities for the kids, while carefully keeping them from crossing paths with their parents around the resort.
The service is expensive, but many parents travelling with children are willing to pay for it.
The same logic applies to dog parks. Why do owners bring their dogs there? They want the dogs to run freely in nature. That gives the dogs what they need, while easing the owner’s anxiety about being apart from them.
“It’s too long; I don’t want to read it”
Once we’ve dealt with the question of usefulness, there’s another, more elusive objection: it’s too long, so I don’t want to read it. You can call that a sign of the times—that people now prefer shorter, more concise content—but it may be worth asking yourself why you don’t want to keep reading.
One thing to watch for is an answer that puts all the blame elsewhere: “I don’t like this person,” “Their argument is biased,” or “I don’t like the way they write.” If every explanation points to someone else, you may be better off staying in your information bubble. Encountering a new line of reasoning can be uncomfortable, and that discomfort can make it tempting to dismiss the source before engaging with it.
Try asking one more “why” beneath that first reaction. Why don’t I like this person? Is it really the individual I object to, or what they represent?
As Zhen Huan, the celebrated strategist of palace politics, puts it: “Whether you can understand it is a measure of your ability; whether I can write it is a measure of mine.”
P.S. My wife has recently been rewatching The Legend of Zhen Huan in the living room.