Featured in TIME Magazine, The Telegraph, and The Times
Introducing Digital Diet:
A Guide to Better Web-Browsing
Find the most helpful, informative, and mindful content online with our new browser extension & mobile application
What is Digital Diet?
Digital Diet is a simple yet powerful browser extension that adds ‘content labels’ to Google search results in real time. Just like nutrition labels help you make better choices about what enters your body, ‘content labels’ can help you take control of what enters your mind, potentially reducing doomscrolling and time wasted on mindless browsing.
It helps you identify:
- Actionability: To what extent information on a webpage is useful on average.
- Knowledge: To what extent information on a webpage helps people understand a topic, on average.
- Emotion: The emotional tone of the webpage—whether people find the content positive or negative, on average.
Rationale for Digital Diet
Digital Diet is grounded in empirical research on why people seek information and how online content impacts mental health:
Our research (Kelly & Sharot, 2021) shows that people want information that is useful, expands their knowledge and makes them feel better. Digital Diet helps users find content that matches their needs and preferences.
We also find that the content people browse online influences their mood and mental health (Kelly & Sharot, 2024). Consuming negative content can induce negative mood, which in turn leads people to browse more negative content. By providing an Emotion score for each webpage, Digital Diet helps users make mindful choices about the type of content they consume.
Why Use Digital Diet?
- Save Time: Quickly identify the webpages that meet your browsing goals, without wasting time on irrelevant links.
- Learn More: Easily find content that deepens your understanding.
- Feel Better: Increases awareness of the emotional tone of content before you click, which can help you avoid doomscrolling.
How Does It Work?
Our browser extension uses language analysis algorithms to evaluate webpage content based on text patterns—much like how you’d judge an article by skimming it, but now you don’t have to!
Real-Life Scenarios:
- Need Practical Advice?
Searching for “I just lost my job” Digital Diet highlights pages with high Actionability scores, guiding you to helpful resources and steps to take.
- Curious About a Topic?
Looking up “Who was the most famous pharaoh” Digital Diet highlights pages with high Knowledge scores to satisfy your curiosity.
- Mindful Browsing!
Want to avoid negative news? Digital Diet’s Emotion score helps you steer towards more positive content.
Bonus – Introducing the Digital Diet App
What Does the Digital Diet App Do?
The companion Digital Diet mobile app complements the Digital Diet extensions by tracking your digital information intake. Similar to apps that monitor physical activity or sleep, it analyzes your browsing patterns across various time periods—hours, days, weeks, months—offering insights into your digital consumption habits.
Why Use the Digital Diet Mobile App?
- Stay Informed: Gain a clearer picture of your digital habits to make more intentional choices.
- Promote Positive Habits: Reduce doomscrolling and mindless browsing by focusing on content that aligns with your goals.
- Improve Your Mental Health: Learn how your digital diet influences your mental health and take steps toward a more positive and productive online experience.
To try the Digital Diet extension or mobile app
Sign Up for Our Beta Program
We are excited to share Digital Diet with you soon
The method for Digital Diet is patent pending under MIT (Inventors: Sharot & Kelly). Digital Diet embodies our commitment to empowering individuals with tools that enhance decision making and well-being. Grounded in research, this tool provides an evidence-based solution to help users make informed, mindful choices in their online browsing.