Ultra-Processed Information
Ultraprocessé: fabriquer l’émotion comme produit.
Industries de l’attention, appétits du cerveau.
Une faim sans fin, nourrie par rien.
The last century mastered the industrial production of food.
Fat, sugar, and salt became tools of engineering, not cooking. Flavor optimized for pleasure, not health.
We are now living through the same transition in information.
Platforms have learned how to manufacture emotional calories: fear, outrage, identity, validation. Not to nourish us, but to keep us consuming.
It’s not “content.” It’s processed information, designed for stimulation.
Fast to absorb, impossible to digest. A diet of meaning substitutes.
Ultra-processed food hijacks hunger.
Ultra-processed information hijacks attention and identity.
The method is the same:
- reduce complexity
- concentrate emotion
- eliminate context
- maximize addiction
Friction disappears. The effort of thinking is replaced by instinct.
One more bite. One more swipe. One more opinion you didn’t earn.
Natural information is costly.
It requires time, nuance, contradiction. It doesn’t go viral. It isn’t designed to trigger the limbic system.
Ultra-processed information is cheap.
It’s engineered from memes, fear loops, tribal signals. It rewards performance over understanding.
You don’t notice the damage immediately.
Just like food: calories feel full, nutrients are missing.
The result is cultural obesity:
loud convictions built on weak information.
This is not about nostalgia.
It’s about agency.
If we don’t choose our informational diet, the algorithm will feed us the most profitable emotions: hate, fear, envy, belonging without intimacy.
What we need is slow information again:
Long-form thinking. Local knowledge. Context. Curiosity. Listening.
Information you have to chew. Arguments that change you, not excite you.
The future of culture depends on how we eat meaning.
Not everything should be engineered for speed.
Al final, lo que consumimos nos convierte.
No hablo solo del cuerpo, sino de la mente colectiva.
Si aceptamos la información ultraprocesada como forma de entender el mundo, perdemos la capacidad de sentir profundidad.
Una dieta de ideas también necesita verdad, paciencia y contexto.
No solo emoción.