Information Overload

Here's something about information overload from the website Principia Cybernetica Web:
"The acceleration of change is accompanied by an increase in the information needed to keep up with all these developments. This too leads to psychological, physical and social problems. A world-wide survey (Reuters, 1996) found that two thirds of managers suffer from increased tension and one third from ill-health because of information overload. The psychologist David Lewis, who analysed the findings of this survey, proposed the term "Information Fatigue Syndrome" to describe the resulting symptoms. Other effects of too much information include anxiety, poor decision-making, difficulties in memorizing and remembering, and reduced attention span (Reuters, 1996; Shenk, 1997). These effects merely add to the stress caused by the need to constantly adapt to a changing situation.
Part of the problem is caused by the fact that technological advances have made the retrieval, production and distribution of information so much easier than in earlier periods. This has reduced the natural selection processes which would otherwise have kept all but the most important information from being published. The result is an explosion in often irrelevant, unclear and inaccurate data fragments, making it ever more difficult to see the forest through the trees. This overabundance of low quality information, which Shenk (1997) has called "data smog", is comparable in its emergence and effects to the pollution of rivers and seas caused by an excess of fertilizers, or to the health problems caused by a diet too rich in calories. The underlying mechanism may be called "overshooting": because progress has inertia, the movement in a given direction tends to continue even after the need has been satisfied. Whereas information used to be scarce, and having more of it was considered a good thing, it seems that we now have reached the point of saturation, and need to limit our use of it."
As the world suffers from more and more information, it becomes harder to process and keep up with it. Humans only have enough time in the day to digest all the information. I found myself reading news sites every few hours, trying to keep up with what's going on in the world. After a while it becomes too much. I found myself thinking about social concerns (see the December 2nd and 3rd entries) that a year ago, I would have ignored. I wouldn't even have to ignore them, I was just oblivious to them. I used to never watch the news or keep up with anything. Life was a lot simpler.
The proliferation of easy publication (blogs, websites, etc), the filtering process has been cut down. Anyone can have a voice. That's why you get low-quality information that people deem as acceptable. Technology helps us, but it also hinders us.
I recommend going back to the simple life. Cut down on the news. Grab a book and some coffee, put on Mozart, and read a little. Take a walk. Go get a back massage. Do something that will take your mind away from the data smog. That's what I'm going to go do right now.