Ask Slashdot: How Do You Avoid 'Information Overload' (wikipedia.org) 133
As we approach a holiday weekend and a brand new year, do we need to start carving out more time away from the internet? "I'm convinced the Internet (as in Slashdot) is making many people more lonely (and duller), not better," writes long-time Slashdot reader shanen:
I think the best description of the problem I've read is The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Not exactly his formulation, but in brief I would say that too much information is overwhelming us...
Some approaches towards solutions appear in The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli (based on the German Die Kunst des klaren Denkens : 52 Denkfehler, die Sie besser anderen uberlassen. Again, better references would be greatly appreciated, especially as regards the problem of disaster porn overwhelming journalism.
New Media professor Clay Shirky has argued that "it's not information overload, it's filter failure." And Carr's original question was actually "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" though he still warned of the possibility that "the crazy quilt of Internet media" is remapping the neural circuitry in our brains. (And that "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens.") The original submitter asked the question another way -- "Is deep thought possible in the Internet Age?" But it'd be interesting to hear what strategies are being used by Slashdot readers.
Leave your best answers in the comments. How do you avoid information overload?
Some approaches towards solutions appear in The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli (based on the German Die Kunst des klaren Denkens : 52 Denkfehler, die Sie besser anderen uberlassen. Again, better references would be greatly appreciated, especially as regards the problem of disaster porn overwhelming journalism.
New Media professor Clay Shirky has argued that "it's not information overload, it's filter failure." And Carr's original question was actually "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" though he still warned of the possibility that "the crazy quilt of Internet media" is remapping the neural circuitry in our brains. (And that "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens.") The original submitter asked the question another way -- "Is deep thought possible in the Internet Age?" But it'd be interesting to hear what strategies are being used by Slashdot readers.
Leave your best answers in the comments. How do you avoid information overload?
I get my information from only one source: (Score:1)
Fox News
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I was about to say, this is a perfectly feasible solution. Pick a partisan outlet (Fox News is one possibility, MSNBC is another), get all your information from there, and you will never have to think again.
Another option is to read any Internet comment section (even Slashdot works for this). This will want you to go away and hide from all humans for a long time; no information overload there.
Summary is too long (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Summary is too long (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't have enough attention span to read the summary. Could someone please summarise it?
"Here's a couple books we'd like you to buy."
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If you're referring to me, then no, but I would recommend seeing what your local library has to offer. I do read more than average, but I couldn't afford the habit if I didn't use the library so much.
Actually, I can only think of one book I bought in the last two years and two more than have been given to me as gifts, and I haven't finished those three...
You'll grow out of it. (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm convinced the Internet (as in Slashdot) is making many people more lonely (and duller)"
That's because you still hope to find some news for nerds, stuff that matters,
We old fucks gave that hope up years ago.
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Yes, but, but, but... In the original form [not that I would want to complain about the editing], I was asking for a Christmas present of enlightenment. I think I went wrong when I tried to make it into a joke along the lines of "Go ahead, punks, make my [Christmas] day" with help for deeper thinking.
I think I would be violating the network protocol to say more. However, the revised version did remind me of The Filter Bubble , which is another closely related book. I read that one last year, though it was
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" Godel, Escher, Bach ."
One of the most over-rated pieces of crap I've had the misfortune of buying.
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Someone will be along shortly to say that's because you don't understand it. Normally it would have happened already; apologies for the delay.
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We old fucks already lost money in a get-rich-quick scheme before, so we recognize bitcoin for the pyramid scam it is.
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"At least you old fucks have objective perspectives on Bitcoin."
No, we might have a couple of hundred bitcoins we mined in the day, but we can't remember the password.
Drink a fuck ton of beer (Score:1)
Easy answer.
Ignore the news (Score:2)
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No thanks, I think I'll just keep paying attention to the stuff that matters to me. I don't give a shit about Trump, America or you.
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Since Trump was elected I mostly ignore the news.
I have selectively ignored some news for decades. For instance, you can filter out all news about the Middle East for twenty years, and when you tune in again the situation will be exactly the same.
Here is a quick cheat sheet:
1. Always ignore news about "people".
2. Selectively ignore news about "events".
3. Read news about ideas and innovations - stuff that matters.
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https://quoteinvestigator.com/... [quoteinvestigator.com]
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There used to be something along the lines of the first question people ask about a movie: the plebs ask who's in it, intellectuals ask what it's about, and hipster knobtroughs ask who directed it.
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“Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/... [quoteinvestigator.com]
This particular comment has been praying upon my mind, even though I've read it before. Before the editing of my question, I actually asked for a rather larger Christmas present, a secret of deeper thinking, but maybe all I got was a deeper thought. If so, then I think this brief comment may have triggered it, though the chain of reasoning seems obscure as I think about it now. Even more obscure when I see that you [thinkwaitfast] were replying to an AC [Anonymous Cowad] post. My settings rarely show them..
Turn off the phone, put it in a room you're not in (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Turn off the phone and put it in a room you're not in. Then, step away from the computer (PC, tablets, laptops, whatever you use.)
Now, go do other things you've forgotten how to do.
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Seriously. Turn off the phone and put it in a room you're not in. Then, step away from the computer (PC, tablets, laptops, whatever you use.)
Now, go do other things you've forgotten how to do.
This is exactly my strategy. You know what's the very last thing most people need? A smart watch, or anything else that tethers them even more to the online world. I think people are forgetting how to experience life first hand.
Re: Turn off the phone, put it in a room you're no (Score:3)
How to stop drinking? Stop drinking. How to stop drugs? Stop taking them. Information overload? Stop consuming it.
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Information overload? Stop consuming it.
WOW -- I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your email newsletter.
It'll fit right in with the rest of the stuff I never quite get around to actually read.
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Huh, this highly recycled hummingbird feather got moderated as insightful.
My mission here will be complete and I can die happy if only I can now figure out how to moderate a moderation point as +1 QED.
Compartmentalize... (Score:2)
I give everything a time, then swap to something else. Here in the US, it takes some digging to get an accurate report about something since sources are heavily biased, so one's best bet is other countries (which have a slant, but tend to be neutral in the case of the issue mentioned.)
Sites like Reddit and Slashdot help, since eventually the truth relating to some allegation or some happening does work its way out, better than most mainstream media, and you will find insights (even if it is someone doing a
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See you at the impeachment and grand jury.
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Actually the last advice in The Art of Thinking Clearly was to stop reading the news. While I do agree that the lion's share of the news is trivia, disaster porn, or worse, I think that it's going too far to ignore all of it.
In terms of solutions, I've been thinking along two lines. One involves time management, as you mentioned, but the problem there is project planning. It's really hard to judge how much time a specific task or project will consume, but it's even harder to decide how much time that task
Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3)
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I'd probably give you the "Funny" mod if I ever saw a mod point, but the deeper truth underlying your joke is that the Internet was largely paid for by porn. I had that not from the horse's mouth, but straight from the owner of an early ISP.
However I'm not sure whether to classify the joke itself as the shallowest form of not thinking or as deep fantasies. I'm embarrassed that I can't recall the name of the anonymizing network... The thing with the little onion?
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Discipline, pacing and limits... (Score:2)
Phone is a phone and GPS and health tracker. No browser, no news, no mail.
No smartwatch.
Main personal device is a tablet. Browser, newsreader and social media app. eMail. eBooks.
"Computer" for work and last resort for personal stuff.
Notepad, reminders, calendar sync across all.
I don't... (Score:1)
Instead of worrying about identifying and remedying problems in my life, I just let Systemd manage my life. If i get to caught up and don't respond to it in time, it kills me and then spawns a new copy! Speaking of which, OH GOD, I FORGOT THE BUTTON! AAAARRRRGGGHHHhhhh!
...
...
New computer, who dis?
The internet is not making people dumber... (Score:5, Insightful)
... it is exposing how shallow and stupid humanity always was. The reality is we live in a dystopian idiocracy. The reason the world is so corrupt is because the vast majority of the public falls for the lies of the rich and powerful and their corporations and vote against their own interests. That's reality.
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Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet.
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I have to disagree with your premise, though you managed to land some good punches from the side. I would say that our current reality is we live in an economy of corporate cancerism. Capitalism and communism are long dead. The only gawd is profit, and <your favorite (or least favorite) profitable corporation here> is gawd's prophet.
While I agree that there is a whole lot of stupidity going on, I think much of it has been cultivated. There was method in their madness when they divided and conquered pu
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I disagree. Being able to think independently seems to be something people do not learn, it seems to be nature. The only thing education may be able to do is bring it out a bit earlier, if that. You can have the most highly educated and intelligent morons that cannot think independently about anything, except maybe some narrow field of specialization and even there they are not really original. No, the problem is with the people. "Corporate cancerism" (like the term, BTW!) is just large corporations having
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Hmm... The topic seems to have mostly expired, but I would say that I have read that authoritarian tendencies tend to be innately favored in about 30% of the population (and it must be a coincidence that #PresidentTweety's hardcore base is estimated around 30%), but I think bad schooling can make things worse. The current trend of teaching to the test under the guise of accountability for those damn tenured left-wing teachers is a kind of obedience training that will stifle any development of independent th
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Well, there is actually research on the topic, and one main contributor put it into a form that is pretty well readable. Some may object to the (clearly marked) personal comments and hence disregard the solid scientific core though (a specific effect of stupidity, namely creating a filter bubble). Anyways, here is the reference. I found it pretty enlightening as it put together quite a few observations I had already made: https://theauthoritarians.org/ [theauthoritarians.org]
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I'd heard of the book earlier, probably from John Dean, who later wrote a related book. My database says that I didn't finish reading it, however. I have a hard time actually getting through any ebook. Only managed that feat a couple of times, whereas I can usually apply myself to finishing any dead-tree book, even if tedious.
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Matches my observation. The average person is astonishingly stupid. And then there are all those that are below average or not so much above. In the end, there are not many people around that are independent thinkers and can actually verify an argument or a statement of fact. Most just estimate the "reputation" of the one making a statement using a process that is not in any way suitable for that and then believe according to that score. That leads to the most hilariously stupid beliefs.
My personal estimati
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100 million ad and brand impressions eventually add up to real stupidity (7,000 ad impressions/day * 40 years).
This is not even counting the full IQ point per minute that decays into radioactive sludge by attending—be it ever so slightly—to trite pleasantries exchanged
I blame the activist mindset (Score:2)
I've felt for a while that there has been a steady drumbeat in the culture to be "engaged" and "informed" and now "woke." There's no respect for someone who says "I work 50 hours a week plus commute, I don't give a shit about $HEADLINE_X. I am going to grab some beer and enjoy $ALCOHOL_COMPATIBLE_ACTIVITY instead of worrying about shit that I can't fix."
But that person is actually speaking a pretty hardcore truth 99% of the time, and the effects of denigrating it are toxic. Here's a good example...
How well
Well, not sign up for Facebook. (Score:2)
It's easy (Score:5, Funny)
1. No Facebook
2. No Twitter
3. No LinkedIn
4. No Instagram
5. No Flickr
6. No Slashd.... d'oh!
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It's not about "no alerts or not", it's about not wasting time on platforms which give you basically nothing.
I also forgot, first one should have been "No YouTube". It's so easy watching one video, then another, then another... you start viewing cat videos and end up looking at 1980's hardware hacks for some reason.
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I put incoming information into three categories - stuff I need to know, stuff I want to know, and stuff I don't care about at all.
Same here. Plus I have "stuff I don't want to know now, but maybe later" and occasionally I pull up something of that later. And I do aggressive filtering. Quite a bit of "legitimate" email goes into my SPAM folder, because it is newsletters and such. I have stopped unsubscribing, I just add a custom rule and never see their great messages again.
The other thing I found valuable, is to read aggregated news with a specific scope. For example, Slashdot is still useful to follow the most important things in IT
What information overload? (Score:2)
Stock up on "Underload' (Score:2)
How Do You Avoid 'Information Overload'
Watch Fox News or CSPAN - no information there.
Information overload? No, entertainment overload (Score:4, Interesting)
As we approach a holiday weekend and a brand new year, do we need to start carving out more time away from the internet?
I don't have any problem with the Internet being full of information, I find it's great. Even if parts of it are full of crackpots you can find tons of useful posts if you're willing to go outside the echo chambers. No, what's killing "everything else" is that there's so much entertainment, even if Sturgeon's law that says 90% of everything is crap I have the feeling the total is growing and growing. Here's a good TV series, there's a good movie, this was a cool game and I feel like I have a "backlog" of things that would be fun but that didn't make the cut. Heck, I have a bunch of things that I'd kinda like to watch a second time which gets constantly pre-empted by something new.
I don't think it's that I've gotten less picky. Maybe it's that I had more time, but that still doesn't explain everything. I feel like things were different before like before WoW etc. where you couldn't get so addicted to a game you'd basically disappear into the computer. Not that I actually played WoW, I knew I had the tendencies from other games and that would be like shooting heroin. But damn, they're good at making things addictive. And this new trend of releasing a whole season at once hasn't helped me, it's like an invitation to binge watching. If I had a week's cool down maybe I'd stop and think it wasn't that great instead of getting caught up in what happens next. And the smartphone killed the remaining zone-out time.
We're not overload with information; (Score:5, Insightful)
we're overloaded with data.
There isn't a precise semantic distinction between these two terms, and they're often used interchangeably. That leads to confusing terms like "information overload".
But if you think about information as that aspect of data or its context that makes us informed, and we instead call the phenomenon we're talking about "data overload", then things become a lot clearer. What we're talking about is a form of incapacitation, but this is exactly the opposite of becoming informed, which is a kind of empowerment. The experience of becoming informed is one of surprise; it makes you sit up and feel alert.
So the answer is to be both more selective about information and more broad-minded about it at the same time. Absorbing data which simply reinforces what you already know is mind-numbing. Seek data which puts the data you already have in context, or shows it in a new light. That's what I mean by being more selective (stop mindlessly consuming the same old stuff) and more open-minded (seek out data that challenges your preconceptions and takes you out of your rut).
Also, beware data that is packaged to be easy to consume mindlessly. It's junk food data. You need more intellectual roughage, something that takes time and effort to chew.
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Its not information overload (Score:2)
You brought up the shallows in the summary. But the issue isn't that you have information overload, the issue is that you keep surfacing new ideas all the time. Stop what you're doing. Turn off reddit and pick 2 or 3 places for information and check them on a schedule. Not when you're bored, not when you have free time. The problem is that a person gets attuned to the constant 'ding' new thing alert, its the same thing as someone playing slots in vegas. Just choose when it is time to look at things, stick t
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Not reading it is even better. Just blindly hit 'Post'.
Leave it for tomorrow (Score:1)
I'm not exactly sure what classifies as "information overload".
I currently have 20,930 unread Slashdot stories stored in my RSS reader (since April 2010). Is this information overload? It is definitely an amount of information that is beyond my processing ability. Yet I don't really feel overloaded.
If I feel like reading news, I open the RSS reader and mash Delete for half a minute on some recent unread articles. After getting rid of the uninteresting clutter, I end up with a list of about 10 stories I'm in
I find this helps (Score:2)
101 of mental health (Score:1)
Learn to stop the thinking part of the brain. Constant thinking is like you have a hand that can't stop fiddling around: it's a mental disease. Thoughts keep building a virtual view of the world, and people get to believe they _are_ this thinking process and disconnect from reality, never having the occasion to just experience how they feel, here and now. Words everywhere (radio, ads, TV, on clothes... and now internet) make it more difficult to stop thinking.
You don't need to think that much: just a bit of
Information overload is not the problem (Score:2)
The complete and total compromise of our society is the problem.
Natural selection is finding a way to operate through the interface of our mechanized microcosm.
The weak are being sucked into the singularity. Their humanity; their reason, their spirituality, their vision, have long since left them and now the devil is coming to collect their debt. There are going to be hordes of brainless media drones no matter what we do now.
Most people reading this are already far down that path, their amygdala programmed
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Very poetic. Unfortunately not fictional.
Shades of Slashdot past (Score:2)
All I got for Christmas was a relatively nice discussion on Slashdot. Judging by what I've seen recently, it makes me wonder if the professional trolls started their vacations early...
My main reaction is that the editing of the submission to direct it towards information overload has kind of limited the scope of the discussion. Probably a good thing, even though I think the underlying topic is mostly deeper and broader than the important aspect tagged "information overload".
Duckduckgo, w3m, and mpv (Score:2)
Inf ovrld?? (Score:2)
The load is totally under your control! (Score:2)
I find the very concept of "information overload" kind of silly since we are all in complete control of the amount and type of information we consume.
The underlying problem is really just that you consume too much information that triggers your anger response. As Bob Newhart would say "Stop It".
Just stop reading so much. Or maybe read more about things that bring you joy. Too many people are feeling alienated because they consume a mental diet tailor-made by crack teams to make you feel afraid and angry a
Simple! (Score:1)
I just stopped worrying about compl
One way (Score:2)
Stop the news, TV, and recycles (Score:2)
Deload (Score:3)
How do you avoid information overload?
Make space in your life.
1. Stop reading the news. It's amazing how (1) information isn't really all that important, nor informative and (2) you tend to get to know important information by IRL socialising.
2. Deactivate your Facebook. Or at least, remove the bloody app from your phone and stop checking it every damn day.
3. Socialise with real people, in real life. Have meaningful conversations.
How do I avoid information overload? I don't :-[ (Score:3)
But if I did, it'd take the form of a 'distributed intelligence agency' of devices and people that observed me, observed my interactions with the world, engaged me in conversation (and other devices and humans on my behalf), and then acted based on its perception of my need. Such actions would include filtering or augmenting my information flows (preferably, doing both). But of course, such a system would need to be controlled, and answerable, to me the user.
This is such a natural role for operating system vendors, its a wonder that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Fitbit, Amazon, Redhat, Omron, Arduino, KDE, etc, haven't cottoned onto it yet. Perhaps because building a 'society of intelligent agents' that acts in the best interests of the customer requires cooperating with 'the other'. And that is hard - both financially, and technically.
When that day comes around, my medical records, Fitbit history, readings from my home blood pressure monitor, locations from my mobile, credit card history -- all these would be brought together and 'digested'. I'd then be 'counselled' to eat healthy takeaway from WholeFoods, bypassing the PizzaHut I was walking towards. (Or not, as the case may be - I've had a stellar exercise week).
Unfortunately, commercial OS vendors and data providers are busy building or tending the walled gardens of their rent-seeking dreams. So the API hooks this 'Society of the Mind' intelligence agency requires aren't available. Until that comes to pass, we're stuck entering data into our own life.
No Social Networks, selective reading ... (Score:3)
social networks:
No social networks. I have one spoof account on FB for my social dancing contacts which I use as needed. Can go for weeks without looking at it. My other social network account has my real portrait and name and is basically there to lead people to my professional Homepage (I do websoftware development).
Email:
I get roughly 5 meaningful emails a week (that includes work), the rest is mostly newsletter spam which I filter or unsubscribe. I seriously cannot fathom what these poor sobs getting 200 emails a day handle it.
Web:
I read and write a little Slashdot every day, and skim German newspapers and newsmags. Although I've reduced that lately - to much cheaply produced read & enrage bait even in respectable outlets (they are *all* struggling to compete). I watch John Oliver, Jim Sterling, and the occasional TED talk. Tim Ferriss (tim.blog) roughly once a month.
Professional:
Techcrunch roughly once a week, Chromedev channel on YouTube roughly once a month.
My biggest struggle is trying not to get caught up in to many web technology fads, which I don't always manage. With full stack webdev you never stop learning so there is more than enough information for me to take in anyways.
Books: roughly 1 every two months right now. To little. I read American scientific stuff (poor economics, why Nations fail, etc.) and some sci-fi and cyberpunk fiction.
Recently I've picked up the habit of breaking off reading if I find I have more important/rewarding things to do, like yoga, dancing or planning my next trip.
My 2 cents.
Limit exposure (Score:3)
I limit my exposure, and force time restrictions on my own browsing. I will only allow myself to browse certain set times and when I feel I need to look some information up, I take note and either wait for that time or consider alternatives.
take a tip from Mr. Paul Anka.. (Score:2)
Just don't look, just don't look. [youtube.com]
ROTFLMAO (Score:1)
The real problem is Entertainment Overload (Score:2)
Pick your information ... (Score:2)
... and avoid the rest.
Information not related to your interests is not only uninteresting, it's a waste of time.
You can be even more informed about your core passions by tamping down on the noise.
Disconnect. (Score:2)
Seriously. Hike. Bike. Paddle a Kayak. Snowboard. Camp. Get on an elliptic trainer and stare at the girls in yoga pants at the gym. It's hard maybe to start doing it, but once you find something that you like, it will be hard to stay away from that thing. My biggest addiction is whitewater kayaking. Playboats. Class IV-V creeking. Waterfalls, whatever! You can't really be distracted by facespace drama and world politics when you're in the gnar!
The thing that really rocks about individual sports
This is how (Score:2)
I do it by skipping fluff stories such as this thing. Unless of course, I have something snarky and not constructive to add.
filter failure reminds me of autism/aspergers (Score:2)
The whole idea of filter failure reminds me of what is happening in people with autism/aspergers and also supposedly wild animals. The human brain has been designed to filter out the unimportant and focus on the important. It's the reason that most non-autistic people after a short amount of time will stop noticing a ticking clock in the background. I think the problem with technology today is just like we have figured out how to synthesize stuff like sugar and drugs that directly bypass the brain's cont