Keller @ Large: How Is Your News And Information Diet?

BOSTON (CBS) - Unless you're one of the lucky few who can eat whatever you want without gaining an ounce, chances are you wouldn't mind dropping a few pounds.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

But until I read about a new book called "The Information Diet," by Clay Johnson, I hadn't really thought about the possibility that I might need to cut down on my news and information diet.

According to the publicity material for the book, we need to be much more selective about the information we ingest: "Just as junk food can lead to obesity, junk information can lead to new forms of ignorance."

It's not clear what he considers junk information, but there's no reason why we can't evaluate our own diets and draw our own conclusions.

For me, the day begins with WBZ on the radio while I'm feeding Buddy the Lab and making coffee.

Then it's the old-fashioned dead-tree Globe and a quick spin through a bunch of other news sources online, usually including cbsboston.com, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, reading a few stories that grab me.

I'll check the Drudge Report, Real Clear Politics and Politico, and sometimes follow links off them.

And I'll check my Twitter feed, heavy with news-oriented sites, to see what they're headlining.

I don't see any expendable calories there.

However, I could probably drop a few pounds by cutting back on my e-mail and social media surfing.

E-mail is one of the major conduits of empty information calories, most notably in chain letters and angry, rumor-filled screeds helpfully forwarded to me by alleged friends.

Facebook also seems to be a dumping ground for bogus info.

And at night and on the weekends, I could definitely cut out the headache-inducing partisans on cable TV talk shows without missing a beat.

But all told, I think my info diet is pretty lean.

The weather's getting nice again.

Maybe I'll just try to walk Buddy more often, and leave it at that.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.