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Knowledge Overload or Internet Lazy?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the learn-things-dangit dept.

Dareth writes "Are we being overloaded by knowledge? Is the number of sources growing faster than we can keep up with them? These questions are posed by this article in USA Todays's tech section The article seems to suggest we need 'better technology to cope with the problems better technology creates.'" From the article: "With a generation growing up expecting everything on the Internet, libraries, non-profit organizations and leading search companies like Yahoo and Microsoft are committing hundreds of millions of dollars collectively to scan books and other printed materials so they can be indexed and retrieved online. HarperCollins Publishers even announced plans in mid-December to digitize its vast catalog."

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Information overload a diagnosed problem? by dada21 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think having all this information at our finger tips can be a boon -- giving us more time to focus on discovery and research and development. I'm always amazed and what information bubbles to the top of Google searches (other than the obvious SEO attempts).

    I was blessed with a terribly short memory from a very young age, but along with it came the ability to assimilate and aggregate seemingly different items together, and do so quickly. My bad memory led to VERY low grades but very high aptitude testing -- quite a conundrum. I took to BBSes and other forms of "instant variable information" quickly at a very young age, and when the Internet hit (mostly gopher at that time, from what I recall), I absorbed it immediately.

    I don't think knowledge overload is necessarily a bad thing -- it is how you use the knowledge that allows us to make the "morality" consideration. It is the old "did the gun or the shooter kill?" debate, and one that I think may be one-sided when it comes to slashdot: many of us make our livings either by manipulating information for others, or by helping others get to that information.

    I can think of many reasons why this information overload is positive, but I can also see how it can become a crutch for some. I have Google everywhere I go (WAP, SMS, HTML) and it is definitely a huge help in so many ways, but it also allows my already bad short term memory to not get the exercise it needs. While I feel I am much smarter at what I was always good at, I have probably become way dumber in what I wasn't strong in. Even the wife acknowledges my memory is worse now than it was 10 years ago (short term that is, my long term memory is very solid).

    Some days I wonder if my memory problems might have been FROM an early introduction to the PC. When I was 4 I touched my first keyboard and quickly adjusted to using a keyboard over using a pencil (around 6 years). This is about 25 years ago. Is what I have more like the ADD that today's youths seems to all have, and do they have ADD because of the early introduction to knowledge overload? Do short attention spans possibly come from our 60-75hz gods?

    It will be interesting to see who from the next generation holds true to the old information forms: pencil, paper, book, memory lessons.

    1. Re:Information overload a diagnosed problem? by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Some days I wonder if my memory problems might have been FROM an early introduction to the PC. When I was 4 I touched my first keyboard and quickly adjusted to using a keyboard over using a pencil (around 6 years). This is about 25 years ago. Is what I have more like the ADD that today's youths seems to all have, and do they have ADD because of the early introduction to knowledge overload? Do short attention spans possibly come from our 60-75hz gods?

      I find that the younger generation can't ADD (with the + sign) unless they have a computer or calculator handy. Ask them to add two wierd numbers (127 and 67, for example) and see how long it takes to get an answer without letting them use a calculator or their computer (hint, you'll be waiting until the devil skates to work).

      I got my first computer at about 3 or 4 as well; a C64. I went through school at the time when using a computer in school was considered a treat. In primary school it was less than an hour a week at school (except for the special class I did once a week which was an hour of extra-curricular programming activities that was organised by the school for a few of us with exceptional computing skills).

      In high school it was only a couple of hours a week in school that we were allowed to use the computers. Basic typing and computer skills were all that were taught (boooooorrrrring to someone who had advanced C knowledge by the time they were 13). There was also diversity in the platform, with some DOS PCs, some Windows PCs and some BBC micros (my fav game ever was on the BBC but i can't remember the damned name of it), Microbees, Commodore 64s, etc. These days it's all Windows PCs everywhere so the students aren't even learning how to think about what they're doing; they're just learning "click here, drag there".

      I think that in the current generation memory problems and total lack of basic skills like handwriting and mathematics are lacking. It's all to do with the gotta-be-online nature of the world these days.

      --
      I drink to make other people interesting!
  2. On the contrary by arrrrg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    By this point, I think availability is growing faster than the body of useful knowledge. Even if the total amount of available information has doubled in the last 20 years, new search technologies make it 1000 times faster to find what you want (approximately, of course). While TFA talks about emerging technologies like del.ico.us and personalized search, I think the real boom is still to come, in the form of real AI.

    When computers are fast enough and new algorithms are developed to really harness this power (I give it 10 years, give or take, for this to begin), computers will finally be able to at least have the semblance of understanding the body of knowledge rather than just syntactically sifting through it. This will give us another order of magnitude change comparable to the introduction of search technologies in the first place. Imagine being able to ask google "in one paragraph, summarize the most influential inventions of 2015". Not the most interesting or illuminating example, but you get the idea.

  3. Other issues with information overload by SocialEngineer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just started theorizing a short while back on the idea that American social/political conflicts stem partially from too much information being available; there are so many differing opinions available, and so little available criticism of each, that we find it difficult to analyze it properly. When you compound this with the inherit laziness of Americans in certain populaces (backwater hick towns, for example), a huge problem begins to rear it's head, and begets conflict.

    It is great to have it so readily available to us, and that we are free to share our own, but breaking down the information in order to determine it's validity becomes an incredible chore due to the sheer amount of conflicting opinions.

    --
    "Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
  4. Knowledge overload/sensory overload by Weatherman-au · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I believe knowledge or information overload is a very real phenomenon. Basically it's just sensory overload of a different kind, right?

    I live in Tokyo these days, and one of the more striking differences between the cityscape here and the one in my home city in Australia is the sheer number of advertising signs, shills, lights, boards, posters, flags and projections. Oh, and ten times as many are illuminated as I'm used to.

    Now while the point of all this advertising is supposed to be that it catches your eye, in this case it's having the opposite effect -- I just tune out. Not just the advertising either -- I mean literally what's going on around me.

    When I first arrived in Tokyo I played well the part of the wide-eyed tourist. Little escaped my attention. But these days I'm more likely to just pop in the headphones of my MD player and scuttle along to work while trying hard to see as little as possible.

    I'm not the only one. One of my co-workers, a lady from the U.S., and I were discussing this recently. She mentioned that these days, she notices much less of what she used to. "I stopped on the footpath yesterday and just looked around, and was surpised to see all this stuff that I've just been walking past everyday!"

    Same thing applies to information on the internet or wherever it's located. Eventually you have to start filtering out the chaff. Problem is that often a lot of wheat goes with it.

  5. RSS Helps me by bahamat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, I think technology is keeping up. I used to spend hours a day reading news sites, blogs, and whatever else. A lot of that time was spent simply checking for new stories. With RSS feeds I'm now alerted when there's something new that I haven't seen. Instead of wasting countless hours looking for information that I might find useful I now have it hand delivered to me in a nice little package and I find that when I'm bored I usually look to things other than the Internet to fill that time.

    Maybe the article writer just needs to catch up to technology and get himself a good RSS reader.