The concept of information overload has received a lot of debate, and I completely agree with Clay Shirky that it’s actually ‘filter failure’ which is causing our current obsession with the problems of keeping up with the influx of content which is published and digitally accessible at a far greater rate than any time in human history.
But I think we’ve all been missing the real problem.
The current situation may be detrimental to our thought processes as some have argued, but that situation won’t last. Not only will technology filters improve, but humans are a pretty adaptable species, and the current supposedly harmful adaptions to accomodate skimming and processing lots of data. And I’m not even sure that information paralysis is the real problem, as we can cut down those inputs if we need to – even just by closing a feed reader or Twitter client, or by turning off the PC or TV.
I’m actually more concerned with a problem which has been affecting me to some extent.
‘Opportunity Overload’
WTF is Opportunity Overload?
As a personal example, I recently bought three books which will hopefully help me to make some changes in my lifestyle, and they nicely represent how we traditionally got the information to make changes and create new opportunities.
Buy a book, take a course, hire a professional, these were the ways to make changes and solve problems for the last few hundred years, even if actually the choices we made were the result of our subsconscious decisions and social proof. As a homeowner, I’d limit the amount of DIY to the amount of information I’d been able to get – and if I wasn’t sufficiently educated, I’d just get a professional in to solve the problem (assuming I had the money available – if not, I’d ignore it and hope it went away).
That’s all changed.
Now I can find videos on plumbing on Youtube, or tips on cutting floor tiles on a blog. Or find better ways to run my businesses. Or learn to programme. Or how to cure the brown spot on my apple trees and improve the vegetable patch.
With internet access, I’m able to access all of these opportunities. To publish my own blog, to record my own music, to shoot my own videos.
Except there are only a finite amount of hours in the day, to be split with sleeping and spending time with my family.
And that’s the real cause of stress – it’s not about the amount of information coming in. It’s about the opportunity overload that information and digital enablement creates, and that I can’t hope to fulfill in the time available. I no longer have the excuse that I’m not a mechanic, plasterer or plumber when I know how much help is available online – and doing it myself theoretically means the cost issue is far less of a reason to avoid doing it.
It means the skills to prioritise tasks is going to be more essential than ever. And so is the ability to accept that not all things will be achievable, and to be able to let go of those opportunities and tasks which I’ll never value quite enough to get around to – even if I’d quite like to be able to say that I’d done it.
And that’s going to be tricky – human nature is ambitious and aspirational. There’s a very, very tiny part of me that still finds it a little hard to accept I’m unlikely to be a professional motorcycle racer, play football for Chelsea, or become a rockstar, even though 99.9% of me has changed to following aspirations to grow my business, support my family, and ride motorcycles and play guitar purely for enjoyment.
So how do we all deal with the knowledge that if we only had enough time, we could Google the way to achieve pretty much any task, but it’s only our human frailty and need for sleep/family/food/friends that are stopping us?
That’s why I feel Information Overload ain’t the problem – Opportunity Overload is.
Tolstoy vs Twitter?
Rather than repeating myself, I’m linking to the comments I’ve made on the Britannica Blog, responding to a post by Larry Sanger.
The essay itself came out of posts between Nick Carr and Clay Shirky. At which point I appear in the comments. There’s an element of crossed wires and confusion, as there often is in debates, particularly those online.
For those who don’t want the context, my position is thus:
‘Regardless of the merit and quality of individual works, mainstream entertainment has gone from print to radio, to TV, and now to online (PC and mobile). This does not remove the value of lengthy works of literature, but it means it has less debate and therefore impact in the modern world, compared to when it first appeared.
The modern world leads to smaller chucks of information, as everyone has agreed. But I would assert the idea that these chunks should never be seen in isolation. And that the aggregation of information I make available via Twitter, for example, compares to that you would be able to dissect if it was in printed long form. And there is now more dicussion, debate and openness by creators and consumers before, during, and after the publication process.
If Tolstoy was alive today, he wouldn’t attempt to Twitter the entire text of War and Peace. But he’d probably discuss his writing and philosophy on his blog or on Twitter, and highlight important passages etc.’
It’s quite interesting that in a length post on the merits of longer works, the most interesting part is in the comments below…