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Cut Through the Bullsh*t in Your Feed and Keep Things In Context.
How to navigate our tech-saturated existence by using your SHAPE Map and CORE Compass.
Jonathan Essary
June 26, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 17 minutes
Published in Product Coalition, revised
. . . in Utopia, where every person has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private person can want anything . . .
Summary
Here's the short version for those of you with little time or short attention spans. ;)
The Problem:
Humans feel more isolated, anxious, and deceived today than ever before with high digital media interactions despite having more access to opportunities (Igor, 2014). We are bombarded with extremely high volumes of less reliable content, and our paleo-lithic brains struggle to keep things accurate (Wilding, et. el., 2018). More of the 188 cognitive biases are engaged at an unprecedented rate in history from digital engagement, making it difficult to keep objective truths in context and build a rounded, rational perspective of our environment and its condition (Pennycook & Rand, 2021).
Having a clear understanding of the context of a topic at various scales contributes to a more rounded perspective of the world around us, making us less susceptible to misinformation, false statements, and propaganda. However, it is nearly impossible to gain enough context if we are not equipped to navigate the complexity of systems that now touch our everyday lives.
The Proposal:
Examining knowledge in context at various scales and having a method to determine the value of what comes across my digital feed has become critical and increasingly difficult to help keep things in perspective.
Ripple Detection is a two-part framework comprising the mental models of the SHAPE Map (Spheres of Human Activity, Proximity, and Engagement) and the CARE Compass (Complete, Aligned, Reputable, Ethical).
The SHAPE Map is a cognitive framework that allows us to understand the context surrounding information by extrapolating beyond what is directly presented. It encompasses seven concentric sphere domains: Self, Society, Civilization, Humanity, Earth, the Universe, and Existence. Each event, topic, or idea creates ripples of varying magnitude that extend across these domains, often undetected or disconnected.
The CORE Compass is a method for examining a source and its content to determine its value by asking whether it tells the Complete story, is Objectively true, is a Reliable source, and is acting Ethically.
By regularly detecting and examining how systems and events intersect, impacting one another, each of us can maintain a grounded perspective of our hypercomplex world. This understanding empowers us to make more informed decisions about our interactions, beliefs, and overall conduct, giving us a better chance at uniting toward a more positive, resilient, and humane future.
Our Current State
Digital product developement is incentivized to address the pain points and benefits of the individual “user.” However, it has a larger impact across populations of indivuals which is often neglected.
Generated concept art of the various types of media and contemplations impacting the individual.
In digital product development, we often design for the individual. A persona, or a small set of personas, that represents the ideal individual(s) with a problem we can solve. We think a lot about the individual users of our product and develop toward the maximum benefit for that individual (and the business). But how often do we think about society using our products?
What about its impact on civilization, humanity, or the Earth? Does it have the power to impact our perception of the universe or how we perceive existence itself? What role does our digital feed play in our interpretation of everything now that it is ubiquitous, messy, and so prevalent in our daily activities? Why do I have a complicated relationship with my most beloved technology?
These thought exercises have led me down many rabbit holes of investigation, conversation, and contemplation, and I have come to wonder about something even deeper and more disturbing. How do I know that I know something?
Furthermore, how far out do I need to know about something and its implications to gain a meaningful perspective on that thing? My investigation to unpack these questions begins with a couple of issues I see with global digital content consumption today that are not helping us as a species.
The Problem with Your Digital Feed & Why You Should Care
The world is getting more difficult to navigate. Journalism, the act of bringing people meaningful stories about current events, is disintegrating into a widely distributed field of contributors to your daily feed, and not all content can be trusted.
Generated concept art of the various types of media and contemplations impacting us daily.
The Technosapien Condition
First, we’ve evolved the human condition into what I’m calling the techno-sapien condition. Our lives have moved beyond our brains’ capability, or possibly even its desire, to fully process the massive volumes of information we are bombarded with daily, as discussed in “How the online world is affecting the human brain.” Technological advances and the advent of modern digital products largely impact our daily onslaught of news, content, suggestions, persuasion, and propaganda. Our always-on culture triggers a chain reaction of cognitive biases, pitting us against each other and slowly overwhelming our ability to comprehend the entirety of things we regularly interact with fully. I think of these conditions as my ripple and the system of ripples that impede on it.
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