February 06, 2005
Paper Proposal
Information Overload in the Informational Technological Revolution (ITR)
SUMMARY
Technology continues to change the way we interact with information. Today, technology helps us produce more information than it is possible to process, making information overload a common phenomenon. At what point does information begin to decrease our quality of life?
“Information overload crowds out quiet moments and obstructs much-needed contemplation. It spoils conversation, literature, and even entertainment. It leaves us more vulnerable as consumers and less cohesive as a society.” (David Shenk, Data Smog, surviving the info glut. Technology Review, May/June 1997, p. 18-26.)
Bombarded with new technologies and encouraged to live a digital lifestyle, it is important to assess this phenomenon instead of blindly embracing it. Today, information is a commodity; it is bought and sold. Information surrounds us at a level previously not experienced. Information comes at us from every direction; we have no control over it, no ability to filter it, reduce it, or master it. The quality of our thinking should exceed the quality of our available information, and not the other way around.
This research paper will explore the effects of information on our society - specifically socially, politically, and emotionally - by exploring the reasons why, with limitless available data, we seem to be lost in a Data Smog.
SOCIALLY
Neil Postman said in his “Informing ourselves to death” speech that there is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been and we solve nothing fundamental by choking ourselves in technological glory.” Technology, on its own, cannot and will not make life better. Technologies, like the computer, can reduce the time it takes to accomplish a task, but they also increase the amount of tasks we are expected to complete.
We now process an extraordinary amount of information compared to ten and twenty years ago. In 1971, the average American was the target of 560 daily advertisements. In 1991, the average American was the target of 3000 daily advertisements. (David Shenk, The first law of data smog. Living the information age, Erik Bucy, p. 159.) We cannot keep up with the flow of information, nor can we process all the available information.
Our information leaves us stagnant and our society suffers for it. In our attempts to filter information, we divide ourselves into “distinct consumer tribes” and “humankind begins to loose the most valuable thing it has ever had: common information and shared understanding.” (David Shenk, Data Smog. p. 121.)
POLITICAL
On the personal level, individuals have greater access to our governmental officials whose offices are flooded with emails and faxes. Lobbyist are no longer an elite group of individuals, but anyone with the inclination to send their representative an email. On a larger scale, we are all - even the politicians - experts in our distinct tribes and not at all well informed on issues as a whole. While our political system benefits from immediate political communication, we suffer from poor decision-making.
The question of our time now is: who controls technology, the government or the private sector? Technology makes gathering personal information easy and cheap. The corporate world uses this information to analyze what we buy, why we buy, and how they can better target consumers so that we buy more. As long as the law allows for this kind of information gathering, individuals have no protection from the corporate world.
EMOTIONAL
McLuhan said that every technology has a service and a disservice. Our environments are cluttered with technologies that have both a positive and negative impact on our lives. Affects of the ITR include increased cardiovascular stress, weakened vision, confusion, frustration, impaired judgment, decreased benevolence, and overconfidence. (David Shenk, Data Smog. p. 37-38.) We suffer from Information Anxiety. As a result, we spend less time processing information and more time attempting to manage information.
INTEREST
I have always been personally interested in understanding the consequence of technology on society. By examining the informational overload affect technology has on our society’s social, political, and emotional wellbeing, I hope to find a balance between information process and information overloading. My goal is to learn how to keep the quality of thinking as great as the quantity of information.
Posted by arosenst at 09:41 AM | Comments (2)