'What's the right balance for a healthy mind?"
Faris Yakob of the creative agency Genius/Steals developed a "Media Diet Pyramid" modeled after the USDA's Food Guide Pyramid (which seems to be based on a lot of old, incorrect ideas about nutrition, but I digress).
"The media we eat for 12 hours on average a day constitute the bulk of the ideas we consume," Faris says in his essay. "What’s the right balance for a healthy mind?"
Faris suggests avoiding junk food sites like InfoWars, Goop, and The Daily Mail.
You can safely consume a half hour of social media, online porn, and "rolling news consumption sites" like CNN.
Text, email, and broadcast TV are OK for an hour.
Games and Netflix get two hours.
NPR, NYT, WSJ, NatGeo, SciAM, and hobby interest sites are OK for three hours.
Tabletop games, music, theater, art, books, and conversation are basically the green leafy vegetables at the bottom of the pyramid – you can consume all you want.
As a general guide, I think it's a good start.
