Information overload

The amount of accessible information available is enormous. As if the vast array of constantly expanding information on the World Wide Web is not enough, people are writing articles in journals, others write books, there's a lot of trash but at any rate far too much of value to be perused in several lifetimes.

What to do about all this? It's a strange state of affairs. Albert Shenk thinks of the information overload as "glut [that] becomes a cloud of data smog". In a very informative article he uses ideas from several of his sources, knowledgable in the fields of memory, economics, psychology, and media to argue that this information overload is not so good for us and what we can do about it.

The main starting point for me is Nelson Thalls' contention that we are pushing beyond the speeds for which we were designed to live. My foremost interest here is in the human being, our potential but also our limits, but ultimately our well-being. This is a complex issue and I have barely begun thinking about it in this context.

In several of his movies David Cronenberg investigated the idea that technology is an extension of ourselves (Videodrone, Crash, Existenz). The idea seems at least in the proximity of Marshall McLuhan's work on media and connectivity, but to some the notion that the internet is an extension of the mind is still a strange, even repellent thought. And why not? If it's not of our flesh and blood, what's it got to do with us? How can it be a part of us? Andy Clark tries to help us think about this issue, asking the reader of his book to imagine him or herself as a cyborg.

Advanced digital technology is with us, it is here to stay. Many have found much joy in it, but many have also been just as frustrated - and I'm not talking about the older generations, of whom many are only recently starting to participate. The constant software and hardware upgrades, the seemingly inexhaustible amount of
technical information that goes along with proficiency, the neverending, ever-growing waves of information infiltrating our minds and senses - what's to be done about it all?? And that is all the more reason to start thinking about it, about the directions digital and information technology, and technology in general, is taking.

The familiar (Western) definition of the person as an individual, as an independent entity with attributes and who acts upon or is acted upon others and other entities, can be traced back at least as far as Descartes' with his dictum "I think therefore I am". Accordingly humans - human consciousness in particular - were given a privileged position in all of existence. The rest of nature was relegated to a position outside consciousness, at a scientifically tenable distance, and viewed as a large, infinitely variable something to be dominated. Fortunately many revisions
have taken place, including thinking of humans as part of ecological systems - human groups themselves a special kind of ecosystem - wherein the individual is always in relation to others.

To mention a few of Shenk's thought-provoking references, he quotes Robert Bjork (an expert on memory in humans) as saying that our memories are stored according to context cues. As a result of data and information overload those contextual cues disappear and their value is largely lost, even if they were stored. According to Juliet Schor, an economist, professionals these days have to learn new technologies every 3-4 months (as an IT worker this statement seems relevant if a little misleading - it's not quite as simple as that; there is a also lot of continuity between technology products). Further, as the number of tasks expand performance must continually be improved upon. A continuous exercise.

Communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson talks about the "normalisation of hyperbole", referring to sensationalism as increasingly the only type of media guaranteed to grab people's attention. As a result the more sober-minded, thoughtful people's views are heard and sought less and less. In my opinion this has a lot to do with the value placed on salesmanship as well - if you can't sell yourself, or get enough attention somehow (anyhow) you're in for a long quiet period.

Shenk finishes the article with lots of practical advice. Not to contribute to the info-glut (for instance by writing more concisely - a habit I might cultivate, as this overlong post testifies), to consciously try and manage one's use of information. Happily, he also suggests that the television set should go ...

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all." - Henry David Thoreau