Information Overload’s Bad Definition
June 13th, 2005I’ve been having an interesting e-mail conversation with Steve Matthews during the past few days. We’ve been chatting about Information Overload and how I believe that it doesn’t exist (which I’m contemplating about changing after speaking with Steve). Steve posted his thoughts on the topic:
“My take, and perhaps simply a difference in definition, is that IO is the negotiation between information want & need, and being in a personal state of over-delivering on the ‘wants’. If we have the opportunity to consume any information we want, most surely we will make bad choices (kid in the candy store & all…). Cohen is correct in stating that IO is not a passive process (or a state of the world, as the media might have us believe), but the vast majority of people cannot work backwards from their own gluttony of content choices.”
The whole post is worth reading for a different take on IO. I love the “working backwards” concept and one that I have incorporated into an Internet Spotlight column that will hopefully be published soon.
As an aside, believing something as mythical does not mean that others don’t see it as half-true. Thus, my use of the term “myth.” The ambiguous definition of myth seems perfect for the ambiguity of IO.