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Having Too Much Information Can Narrow Your Focus

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-grandma-i-don't-want-to-hear-about-your-doctor's-visit dept.

CeruleanDragon writes "This excerpt sums up Dave Pell's article at NPR pretty well: 'Google's Eric Schmidt recently stated that every two days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of civilization through 2003. Perhaps the sheer bulk of data makes it easier to suppress that information which we find overly unpleasant. Who has got time for a victim in Afghanistan or end-of-life issues with all these tweets coming in?' It's a valid point. If it's not tweets or Facebook posts, it's lengthy forum arguments or reading news articles from the time you walk in the door at work until you're ready for bed at night, and realizing you didn't actually accomplish anything else. Sometimes too much information can get in the way of living and can bury otherwise important things."

4 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Too early. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I will come back to the thread later, when there are several hundred comments to read.

  2. every so often, you have to turn off the toys. by swschrad · · Score: 4, Funny

    perspective is import... OOOHHHH, shiny.

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    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  3. Re:Fuck Islam! by Itninja · · Score: 3, Funny

    You want to have fuck all three of those things? I mean one is ethereal, one is a long-dead man, and one is a religion. But hey, what rings your bell man. I am sure there are many Muslims who may not swing that way, but who appreciate the thought. How can one person have so much love in their heart?

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    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  4. Re:On the other hand by GSV+Eat+Me+Reality · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you're a distractible person you can be even more distracted if you want to. If you're a productive person you can be even more productive if you want to.

      Or, if you're subject to both tendencies, you can suffer from Extreme Informational Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome and eventually end up playing Tetris all day.

      Yes, one can suffer from both at once. As an example, it's like spending four intense hours searching forums trying to find that one variable setting you need to make xorg work properly, then you promptly get distracted by an youtube video someone sent you in your email, and forget to finish the build for two days.

      This is of course just a hypothetical situation, nothing of the sort has ever happened to anyone...