Slashdot Mirror
Knowledge Overload or Internet Lazy?
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."
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.
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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.
There is no such thing as information overload. All you have to do is narrow your search, or re-evaluate what you thought you were looking for. Because the tools are more powerful, they require more thought to use effectively. Not an astounding surprise there.
This affected concern over "information overload" is ridiculous. Accessibility is a good thing. Being able to sit in your home late at night, hours from a decent library, and search Jstor or similar online resources is an amazing advance over where we were 20 years ago. True, we didn't know there was so much information out there, and we have to learn to use more specific search terms. Big flipping deal. This is like saying electric lights have created new problems because now people are staying up later. I'm usually ambivalent about just about everything, but information accessibility is like Schindler's list - it's an absolute good.
Now, if you want to discuss government and business collecting/abusing personal information, then we can talk. I'm referring to literature, financial data, legislation, etc, not forbidden political views.
The Amish are typically looked down upon as ludites or anti-intellectuals, especially with regards to technology.
The reality is more complicated. Basically, that they simply have different values than most urban Americans.
They refuse to allow technology to intrude into the parts of their life which they value the most: Eg: personal relationships.
Many Amish sects actually allow the use of telephones, but not in the home. Several homes will sometimes share a telephone housed outside in a small kiosk the same way that several houses may have a common location for their mail boxes.
The tendency, when faced with new technologies, is for the Amish to wait a good long time to see the effects of the technology on the larger society, and then make a decision as to whether to allow it into their towns.
That may be viewed as being very conservative, but its certainly not crazy or stupid.