Where IT's @!
Occassional (tid)BITs and BYTES from the future.
Monday 27 April 2009, 10:26 AM
Scientists: Information overload may be damaging our ability to feel
Well it's finally being addressed by the scientific community!
Information Overload isn't just a consideration, it may now be based on cold hard facts.
In his seminal book of the 60's (Future Shock) Alvin Toffler suggested that 'increasing the number of choices a person has, makes it harder for them to make a decision.' It also reduces reaction times.
Since my very first observations of the Internet as a communication tool, I've been telling people that info overload WILL happen - that the explosion of information and the resources we adopt to source, locate, discover, connect, share and interact with, will at some time require a radical shift in our ability to personally control the datastream. To this end, little has been done. Once we adopt a new medium (Twitter now being the next big thing), we quickly find ourselves committed to managing yet another information resource. I know of many people (and corporations) who are literally drowning in a sea of information, all desperately trying to cope with the exponential growth of a myriad new utilities.
Beyond National Academy of Sciences findings we will soon witness the birth of another phenomenon: infoexodus or the creation of Dead Data. As swarms of users rush from one social utility to another, seeking a place where 'the action' is, the models they had previously utilized will begin to crumble as they abandon them in droves - think Myspace. The information people had provided will, of course, remain like a kind of digital-ghost as closing an account will become a tedious, 'who cares' affair.
What we are today, may not be what we are tomorrow. What we think about now, may not be what we think about later. As change becomes constant, we will all become changelings.
So the next time someone asks you why you're NOT on MySpace, LinkedIn or using Twitter, just tell them that you're waiting for the future to deliver a model that suits your needs - that you're not one of those people easily influenced by [massively aggregated] peer group pressure.
As for feelings, I'll leave that for another post.
CNN Twitter study
http://tinyurl.com/cnwx6c
Also see 'Twitter is a Fad' article here: http://tinyurl.com/d5og6r
TFD
Information Overload isn't just a consideration, it may now be based on cold hard facts.
In his seminal book of the 60's (Future Shock) Alvin Toffler suggested that 'increasing the number of choices a person has, makes it harder for them to make a decision.' It also reduces reaction times.
Since my very first observations of the Internet as a communication tool, I've been telling people that info overload WILL happen - that the explosion of information and the resources we adopt to source, locate, discover, connect, share and interact with, will at some time require a radical shift in our ability to personally control the datastream. To this end, little has been done. Once we adopt a new medium (Twitter now being the next big thing), we quickly find ourselves committed to managing yet another information resource. I know of many people (and corporations) who are literally drowning in a sea of information, all desperately trying to cope with the exponential growth of a myriad new utilities.
Beyond National Academy of Sciences findings we will soon witness the birth of another phenomenon: infoexodus or the creation of Dead Data. As swarms of users rush from one social utility to another, seeking a place where 'the action' is, the models they had previously utilized will begin to crumble as they abandon them in droves - think Myspace. The information people had provided will, of course, remain like a kind of digital-ghost as closing an account will become a tedious, 'who cares' affair.
What we are today, may not be what we are tomorrow. What we think about now, may not be what we think about later. As change becomes constant, we will all become changelings.
So the next time someone asks you why you're NOT on MySpace, LinkedIn or using Twitter, just tell them that you're waiting for the future to deliver a model that suits your needs - that you're not one of those people easily influenced by [massively aggregated] peer group pressure.
As for feelings, I'll leave that for another post.
CNN Twitter study
http://tinyurl.com/cnwx6c
Also see 'Twitter is a Fad' article here: http://tinyurl.com/d5og6r
TFD
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