Information Overload
Posted on | June 15, 2009 | No Comments |
Lately I’ve found myself increasingly distracted by that pesky giant in the closet that keeps tapping my shoulder every time I sit down at my computer. You know it. You’ve seen it before. It comes in the form of too many RSS feeds in your reader, too many blogs to read, too many Twitter conversations to follow, too busy of a Facebook timeline, etc, etc. Yep, I’m talking about information overload.
Living in today’s technology-obsessed world has its perks but information overload is definitely not one of them. It’s a growing problem that many a Luddite have written about. So I’ve resolved to reassess my incoming information channels every so often to measure the worth of what I have flowing into my brain and if my life really depends on it.
To begin that reassessment, I’m starting with my Google Reader RSS feeds. Not long ago I had over 450 feeds coming into my Google Reader at any given time and the list was growing rapidly every week. Now I’m proud to say I have it down to 386. The same has grown true of my Twitter feed. I’m now being more discretionary in who I follow and the worth of the incoming content/conversation.
Now, I know some people out there who will tell me, “It’s not how many channels you have coming in, it’s the way you devour that information.” And, yes, I agree in part. We are learning to take in more information today than we were 10 years ago. However, I still firmly believe that we have to remain discretionary in those channels in addition to finding new ways to filter that information into our brain.
This has been a topic that has interested me for quite some time as we advance forward with technology and ease of access to an endless Everest of information on the Internet. Plenty of books have been written about it and plenty more will come. I could probably write one myself, but this post isn’t intended to go into length, only to highlight the growing problem I’ve noticed.
I was a late-comer to Google Reader and utilizing RSS feeds, but now that I fell in love with it I’m finding it’s choking me to death and I want a separation. I’m welcome to any tips on how to better filter information in any way to make better use of it. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if you have something to share.
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