Reality as information
Everything that reaches you arrives as data. Information is what a consciousness makes of that data.
My Big TOE describes consciousness as an evolving, self-modifying information system — a set of parts that between them handle input, output, memory and processing. That is the central metaphor of the whole model.
It draws a strict line between data and information. Data is what gets transmitted. Information is data plus its meaning, value and significance, and meaning only exists for something capable of understanding it. A hard drive moves data. Only a consciousness holds information.
So when the model says reality is made of information rather than matter, it is not saying reality is made of numbers. It is saying reality is made of meaning, and meaning requires somebody for it to mean something to.
Where this gets misread
That consciousness is therefore a computer. A computer only ever moves data around; nothing in it understands what the data is for.