Short Post: Metaphor, Mediasnacking & Obesity

24 March 2007 | Culture, Internet, Media | Comments

Two ideas have collided in my head over the past few weeks of frenetic work and business travel, and I want to share them here.

The first idea — that there is a discouraging epidemic of obesity and particularly childhood obesity in this country — isn’t new, but a rash of new PSA billboards on the subject seems to have broken out across the country. For a harrowing book on this, check out Fran Kaufman’s Diabesity and don’t miss a related website, Diabetes Prevention Source.

The second idea is that media consumption has irrevocably changed into mediasnacking. The March cover story of Wired Magazine covers this in a fast-paced but detail-laden account (and don’t miss Steven Johnson’s useful counterpoint, “Snacklash“). And, last month saw a flurry of blog posts about mediasnacking and the launch of a U.K.-based project called Mediasnackers. Check out their launch video here.

The late philosopher Donald Davidson wrote a fascinating essay called “What Metaphors Mean” in which he persuasively argued that metaphors enable their readers to GENERATE meaning rather than interpret it. The “snacking” embedded within the word “mediasnacking” is clearly metaphorical.

So here goes: if excessive snacking leads to obesity, what does mediasnacking lead to?

CAVEAT: I’m not indulging in a diatribe against the changing media world. Instead, I want to know what — to extend the metaphor — a balanced media diet might look like.