“Information Overload or A Search for meaning?” is the title of a very interesting and well-researched article by Frank Furedi published in the online magazine, The American Interest, which deserves credit for the image above. I was writing  a draft of this post with many of the same thoughts when I discovered Furedi’s scholarly article, from which excerpts are quoted below:

Our society is supposedly drowning in a flood of information brought on by the frenzied pace of technological change. A tour through history, however, shows us that these concerns are nothing new.

Ours is said to be an Age of Distraction, in which the frenzied pace of technological change makes it difficult if not impossible to focus and concentrate on challenging books and texts. In universities many academics argue that the constant culture of browsing on the internet has undermined students’ interest in serious deep reading. It is also frequently asserted that our capacity for attention is also constantly challenged by the relentless production and flow of information. Information anxiety expressed through the idiom of Information Overload is frequently represented as the normal state of affairs of life in the 21st century.

Since Richard Wurman published his best-selling book Information Anxiety in 1989, agonizing about Information Overload-related pathologies has become a regular topic of cultural commentary. Often the flow of digitally mediated information is expressed through the metaphor of a flood, with the implication that if most of us are not literally drowning we are least overwhelmed by it. It is often asserted that businesses are “drowning in data” and that creativity is difficult if not impossible “when you’re facing a flood of information.” Apparently, Information Overload does not merely inhibit creativity. It is also held responsible for a variety of afflictions connected to the distracting effects of exposure to “too much information.”

This blog is mainly concerned with the challenge of choosing how and where to invest our valuable time on social networks, but my topic closely coincides with “Information Overload.’

In this blog I will post not only analyses of the problems, but also solutions from my own research and my experience as a “glutton” for information and a social network “addict.” One size does not fit all. It is important to remember that we do have the gift of free will and the power of choice.