Fitbit

Infophilia, A Positive Psychology of Information | July 25, 2026 | Vol. 4, Issue 38

Technophilia | Economics of Information | Library and Information Science

✨ Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly serial and a living lab exploring how our love of information and connection can help us thrive, individually and collectively. This is avant-garde research in how we engage with knowledge, meaning, and each other. If this is your first time here, I’m glad to have you. To learn more, browse the links above, the Archive or About. Or simply discover your infostyle by taking an anonymous, private, 10 question assessment.

📌 Access & Attribution: This serial offers free previews always and occasional open access essays to keep scholarship accessible. Students and those facing financial barriers can request complimentary access. If you find value here, please cite the original work and consider supporting the public scholarship through subscription. Proper attribution sustains this work and models healthy information engagement.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2026, July 25). Fitbit: An Information Story. Infophilia, A Positive Psychology of Information, 4(38).

Late June 2026. The ALA’s Guidance on the Use of AI in Libraries was published, incorporating feedback submitted during the public comment period. Among its conclusions: AI and other automated information systems can threaten intellectual freedom when they obscure how information is ranked, extract public or library-created data without clear public benefit, or optimize engagement at the expense of attention, reflection, and independent judgment (p. 5).

July 14. Voice of OC published my second op ed on Irvine's new public library system: “What Should Irvine’s Library Budget Look Like: Newport Beach Already Shows Us.” The essay argues that local control is only the beginning. It must be matched by transparent budgets, understandable public reporting, and accountable local governance if intellectual freedom is to be more than an aspiration.

July 16. The City of Irvine released its Library Strategic Plan, 2026-2029. For the first time, Irvine officially identifies Intellectual Freedom as one of its five core values alongside Community, Empathy, Inclusion, and Innovation — a significant milestone in the city’s transition to an independent public library system. The plan offers the first comprehensive statement of the new municipal library system’s vision, mission, priorities and values.

July 17. The ALA150 project published "The Future of Librarians: dLIST, a Story the Commons Keeps." In 1962, ALA showed the world what a library could become at the Seattle World’s Fair. Library 21, as the exhibit was called, imagined a future of networked knowledge, instant retrieval, and universal access. 40 years later, a faculty member at the University of Arizona quietly built a piece of that future. The essay traces that story and asks what it still teaches us today.

Last week’s essay, “Degoogled,” has been revised and expanded — following thoughtful reader feedback. I'd claimed that Google had no control over my phone; readers helped me articulate the truer, stranger — and ultimately more interesting — reality. The updated essay includes a note explaining the revisions.

That revision also turns out to be the best possible introduction to what happens next. Last week explored the price of leaving. This week is about the price of staying — because while I was busy refining an essay about a phone Google can't touch, Google quietly finished switching off a device I’d faithfully used since winning it as a prize.

Information Stories take something you experience every day and walk you through the systems behind it. This one is for anyone who ever bought a thing, kept it working, changed nothing — and lost it anyway.