Information Overload

"We have access to too much information." I'm sure that if I'd said that 100 years ago I would have been considered a little odd, and if I had said it to Copernicus, Da Vinci or Galileo they would thought it extremely bizarre perhaps even considering me a little mad.

But these days it's all too true, those of us connected to the internet are all but drowning in a vast ocean of information. From company web sites, news web sites, blogs, video and social sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter there is a huge amount of data for us to consume. Fortunately, some of it is duplicated either by virtue of syndication or because there are many people reporting the same event, but that still leaves the vast majority of information which isn't.

I am sure that it's possible to spend the whole day just keeping up with everything streamed on Twitter, let alone Facebook and I wonder just how many hours of video are now available on YouTube. It's impossible for one person to keep up with it all, and it's not even worth trying. We need to be selective in what we consume, which leaves us at the mercy of how a web site is designed and how it's data/pages are categorised. Not forgetting the search engines which play a vital role in helping us find that information, though they are by no means the only way and perhaps not even the most significant these days.

But we also need the self discipline to limit what we consume and the time that we spend, otherwise we'll spend it all consuming information and none of it getting on with the important things in life.