TMI
Hmmm. I don't know if it's a particularly good idea to publish an article that I finished writing at 2:30 in the AM. But, I guess I've turned in papers for grades that were finished later than that, so...
How much information is too much information? At what point is so much information available for consumption that it actually ends up decreasing the level of knowledge of the average citizen because they start to filter it all out?
The internet is an incredible tool for finding all kinds of information. You can get perspectives on any given subjects from the MSM (mainstream media) – both conservative and liberal branches, organization websites, government websites, personal websites, and now blogs. Want to know how the invasion of Iraq is perceived in Ireland? Now you can! How is Taiwan reacting to the death of the Pope? Find out! Looking for the anarchist perspective on Social Security? It’s probably out there somewhere. But at some point, it is more work to filter out all of the blatant inaccuracies, biases, and unintelligible ramblings than all but the most devoted information junkie is willing to put up with. People tend to self-bias – they find sites (and television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, and even particular columnists) they tend to agree with and stick to them. It’s like only ever talking to your friends that you agree with and never talking to anyone whose ideas you are unfamiliar with or whose ideas you have disagreed with in the past. It actually defeats the point of having some much information available for consumption.
Granted, all of this happened before the internet and television and modern technology in general. Friends, after all, are people whose opinions you come to respect if not always agree with. They are people you seek out and see more often than most, like bookmarks (I can see the bumpersticker now: Friends are like bookmarks…). But a strange sense of disconnectedness happens when there is so much information to choose from. When you find enough voices that agree with you to occupy your time, you spend less time listening to other opinions. You have the whole world open to you, but you walk the same streets day after day, rarely venturing beyond. This makes people less likely to understand “how anyone could do X” because they’ve never encountered that perspective. The internet’s lack of physical geography makes it much easier for people to cluster ideologically, creating not debate, but distrust of the other side. Why is this country becoming so polarized on so many issues? Because people have stopped listening because they’ve heard so much they can’t handle it anymore. Instead of feeling open to changing their opinions, they stubbornly clamp down on what feels secure and familiar to save them from being washed away by the flood of information. 24-hour news channels are probably more to blame for that than the internet, since more people consume the information they provide. But the internet does nothing to stem the flow.
And what of the people who are seeking out information so they can make a decision? It’s good to have two or three or even four different sources of information on what a new car will cost, where to get car insurance, what treatments should be used for certain ailments, and so on. But having 4000 sources can be overwhelming. Especially if the first few you look at don’t seem to have what you are looking for.
I don’t know that this information overload really creates a new problem. I think it may simply be recreating a problem that existed before modern technology allowed people to first physically then mentally travel outside of their bubbles. Or it could be that the people who stick to sites they agree with are not the kind of people who would actively seek out differing opinions, but those who do actively seek out differing opinions now have a greater ability to do so.
How much information is too much information? At what point is so much information available for consumption that it actually ends up decreasing the level of knowledge of the average citizen because they start to filter it all out?
The internet is an incredible tool for finding all kinds of information. You can get perspectives on any given subjects from the MSM (mainstream media) – both conservative and liberal branches, organization websites, government websites, personal websites, and now blogs. Want to know how the invasion of Iraq is perceived in Ireland? Now you can! How is Taiwan reacting to the death of the Pope? Find out! Looking for the anarchist perspective on Social Security? It’s probably out there somewhere. But at some point, it is more work to filter out all of the blatant inaccuracies, biases, and unintelligible ramblings than all but the most devoted information junkie is willing to put up with. People tend to self-bias – they find sites (and television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, and even particular columnists) they tend to agree with and stick to them. It’s like only ever talking to your friends that you agree with and never talking to anyone whose ideas you are unfamiliar with or whose ideas you have disagreed with in the past. It actually defeats the point of having some much information available for consumption.
Granted, all of this happened before the internet and television and modern technology in general. Friends, after all, are people whose opinions you come to respect if not always agree with. They are people you seek out and see more often than most, like bookmarks (I can see the bumpersticker now: Friends are like bookmarks…). But a strange sense of disconnectedness happens when there is so much information to choose from. When you find enough voices that agree with you to occupy your time, you spend less time listening to other opinions. You have the whole world open to you, but you walk the same streets day after day, rarely venturing beyond. This makes people less likely to understand “how anyone could do X” because they’ve never encountered that perspective. The internet’s lack of physical geography makes it much easier for people to cluster ideologically, creating not debate, but distrust of the other side. Why is this country becoming so polarized on so many issues? Because people have stopped listening because they’ve heard so much they can’t handle it anymore. Instead of feeling open to changing their opinions, they stubbornly clamp down on what feels secure and familiar to save them from being washed away by the flood of information. 24-hour news channels are probably more to blame for that than the internet, since more people consume the information they provide. But the internet does nothing to stem the flow.
And what of the people who are seeking out information so they can make a decision? It’s good to have two or three or even four different sources of information on what a new car will cost, where to get car insurance, what treatments should be used for certain ailments, and so on. But having 4000 sources can be overwhelming. Especially if the first few you look at don’t seem to have what you are looking for.
I don’t know that this information overload really creates a new problem. I think it may simply be recreating a problem that existed before modern technology allowed people to first physically then mentally travel outside of their bubbles. Or it could be that the people who stick to sites they agree with are not the kind of people who would actively seek out differing opinions, but those who do actively seek out differing opinions now have a greater ability to do so.
posted by SpakKadi at 2:27 AM
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