Information Overload

Information Overload --

With all the changes in technology today, a major influence in society is mobile and information access. The flow of information has changed our culture in the last two decades. Phones, laptop computers as well as digital mediums progressing throughout the world are revolutionizing the speed with which everything occurs.  Communication cannot be compared any longer to past practices. The concept of the pony express less than 150 years ago or the fax and hard wired telephones just 20 years ago as industry standards are hard to conceptualize.

With this progress of the velocity of information flow, there has to be a recognition that the human mind simply cannot digest information the way we did in the past. Attention spans with such an increase in input have shortened. The filters of information flow have had to adapt to the mediums delivering such greater volume. The result is a search for better ways to comprehend and manage information.

The channels we use with computers and mobile devices today are dominated by media and now social media connections. Broadcasters of the last century have morphed to media channels of the 21st century and now simple mobility gives anybody with a device the means to broadcast. This effects both volume and quality. The combination results in a competition for mind share primarily influenced by speed and sensationalism. Lead-ins of all mediums are targeted to shortened attention spans.

These trends of volume of information flow, expanded access and shortened attention spans, have led to a blurring of the need for factual content and the speed to access and being first to publish. Facts have increasing become irrelevant and the loudest voice become more prevalent. Manipulation and bias changes the filters as sources become blurred. Society has now reached such “Google” proportions that sources of information are lost in search only to be replaced by first to market and search prioritization. Facts matter less. Simplification to 142 characters and first in search rules the informational world. Unintended consequences of increased technology and changes in media.