How do You Deal with Information Overload?

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:11:28 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

The problem today isn’t that there’s not enough information. There’s too much. It’s not there aren’t ways to publish content on the Internet – there are an abundance. A lot of noise comes with that signal. So we’ve got different problems than we used to have. Information used to be handed to us from “on high”, as recently as a decade ago. Nowadays, information is just literally everywhere. It’s overwhelming at times. It’s impossible for me to keep up with the news aggregator, the email, the social networks…

Where does it end? How do you keep up with this information overload? It’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to start actually closing my system down. I love information. I’m an information junkie! I love teaching, learning, consuming, producing… I love it all. Imagine billions of people like me, though. How do we deal with all of it? I received an email recently about this very subject:

As it relates to hardware, Moore’s law does a good job of explaining the limitation of transistors in relation to the exponential growth of such systems. Is there an equivalent to Moore’s law for searching and assembling all of the information that is found online? What are we to do when the content becomes so overwhelming that we may have to design better tools just for managing and viewing information?

Are we relying too much on the machine to figure out what’s good and what’s bad? I think we are, and that’s where information overload is getting to be overwhelming. A few years ago, I was able to deal with it much easier. I think that’s because the tools just weren’t as good at putting the information together for us. It gets bigger and bigger.. and worse and worse… every day.

I believe the future of information overload is to go back to classic mode: humans and machines. The Internet is the connection between us. If I have a question about something, I’ll turn to someone I know, and who will have the correct information. What’s the answer to all of this information overload then?

I’m interested in hearing your opinions on this. Leave me a follow-up comment here, or send me an email to chris@pirillo.com

FirstRSS ERROR: "http://shop.tagjag.com/products/information" NOT FOUND!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

How do You Deal with Information Overload?

Chris Pirillo » overload

How do You Deal with Information Overload?