The filter hierarchy
There's more information, provocations, riffs, causes, meetings, opportunities, viral videos, technologies and policies coming at you than ever.
So, how do you rank the incoming? How do you decide what to expose yourself to next?
- Email from your boss
- Personal note from a good friend
- Three or four recommendations from trusted colleagues, each with the same link
- A trending topic on Twitter
- The latest on Reddit
- Phone call from your mom
- File on the intranet you're supposed to read before the end of the week
- Spam email from a stranger
- Tenth note from Eddie Bauer, this one to an email address you haven't used in a year
- Post on Google + from a friend of a friend
- Facebook update from someone you haven't seen in ten years
- Angry tweet from someone you've never met
- Commercial on the radio that's playing softly in the background
- Email from someone who had your back one day when it really and truly mattered
- !!!urgent marked email from the HR department about the TPS reports
- Text message on your phone from your husband
- Phone message from the kid's principal
- Tweet from the handler of a celebrity who is pretending to be the celebrity
- Story that's repeated endlessly on cable news because a producer thought it would get good ratings
- Handwritten love note from a current crush
- New review in the Times of a restaurant you happen to be going to tonight
- Obviously bulk snail mail from a charity you donated to three years ago
- Latest volley in a flame war
- Blank sheet of paper quietly waiting for your next big innovation
- Comment on a blog post you wrote three days ago
- New post by your favorite blogger, delivered via RSS
- Book in the bookstore, next to the cash register
- Newest negative review of your business on Yelp
- Movie playing across town
- TV commercial on a show you've got on your DVR
- Book on the back shelf of a bookstore, newly put there yesterday by the manager, who doesn't know what you like
- Tweet from someone who really, really wants you (and everyone else) to follow her
- Rebecca Black's new video
- Sales pitch on your voicemail
Which of these are required reading for a productive member of society or a good employee or an informed citizen? Which do you do out of habit? Are you assuming that your habits are the norm, and that others have an obligation to pay attention to what you pay attention to? Should there be symmetry–is it logical to only engage with people who prioritize their filters the same way you do?