You Are The Media You Eat

We partnered with a DPG Media to examine how different media diets shape emotion, perspective, and sense-making of the world. During a two-week media deprivation experiment in which participants reversed their normal media habits - social-first users switched to local journalism, while news readers went social-only - capturing the experience through diaries, screen recordings and filmed reflection sessions.

By isolating the effect of the media environment, the study revealed just how profoundly context shapes mood, attention and worldview. Participants on a journalism-heavy diet reported feeling calmer, more focused and more connected to the world, while social-only users experienced greater agitation, distraction and mental fatigue. The project gave DPG Media a powerful evidence base for the value of trusted editorial environments and became the foundation for a broader thought leadership platform on media quality and advertising effectiveness.