Each and every one of us is awash in a tidal wave of information. No one person living today can absorb more than an incredibly tiny fraction of it, even by those considered by society to be well read and highly knowledgeable. The basic reasons we find ourselves treading water in this ocean of data is firstly an ever expanding population – more people produce more information; and secondly the ever increasing percentage of people who can read and write. The more who can read and write, the more there is to read and write.
We’re drowning in a sea of information. Yet once upon a time our remote ancestors could wade through just a shallow puddle of data. We’re exposed to as much information in just a few days or weeks now as our remote ancestor had to deal with throughout their entire lifespan. While data has exploded exponentially, especially in the 20th Century but especially, especially since the advent of the Internet, our ability to find just those few drops we really need within the downpour; process it and keep it in long term memory for immediate and useful retrieval, hasn’t proceeded afoot. In fact, it’s now often the case that keeping abreast of even one personal or professional topic generates more data drops than we can comfortably absorb. It’s overwhelming us because our brains; our wetware’s capacity is still a constant, as steady-as-she-goes capability now as it was 10,000 years ago when data drops were relatively few and far between.
When you’re born, you know nothing about everything. Towards the end-of-your-days, you probably know a massive amount, but about relatively little. A top rated concert violin player might be hopeless at understanding and mastering the intricacies of the piano. You might be a grand master in chess but can’t understand the finer points about baseball. A Nobel Prize winner in quantum physics might understand nothing about rocket science. A master at painting, varnishing, staining or shellacking wood might be a disaster at carpentry. Even if you were smart enough, and had the sufficient dexterity, no person today could be equally an expert knowledgeable in the violin and the piano and chess and baseball and quantum physics and rocket science and painting woodwork and carpentry. Those days are long gone. From jack of all trades and master of none, it’s now jack of one sub-trade and barely able to master that.
Once upon a time relatively few people could read or write. What ‘books’ existed were hand copied on birch bark or papyrus or carved in stone or painted on walls. Only one or perhaps at most several dozen copies existed in any one locality. There might be, for really significant works, a few copies that were translated into other languages. Translated, whether translated or not, anyone who could read and write could easily be acquainted with nearly the sum total of available human knowledge as expressed in some physical form or other.
Fast forward slightly, and humans invented the printing press. Relatively more (percentage wise) of the human population could also now read and write. The number of copies of books available to those still relatively few humans with the time and ability to read could now number in the many hundreds to multi thousands. Still, with a higher population, and a greater percentage of that ever increasing population able to digest the wisdom of others, well, it was getting somewhat problematical that anyone could be universally educated in all things.
Fast forward several more generations to the 1800’s and early 1900’s, and books were becoming a dime-a-dozen. More and more people were educated enough to read these pulps (as often they were) or dime novels often called because they cost a dime. Still, it was still reasonable to acquire a very broad education, and relative easy to still keep up with any particular genre of knowledge, or at least all of a subgenre – say science, or at least all of physics.
At least back then they didn’t have, in addition, information being pumped at them 24/7 by radio, TV and the Internet.
Fast forward a bit more and books, newspapers and magazines were everywhere. Numeracy and literacy were, if not yet universal, getting closer and closer to that objective. Lots of people in theory could tell the world their tale(s). However, publishing by any individual had to go through a lot of red tape and the most that most of the great unwashed could expect was perhaps a letter-to-the-editor in their local rag-sheet (sorry, newspaper), or a few seconds on talkback radio for by now radio & TV was blowing you away with their information content (mostly forgettable) and their ads (very forgettable).
Then came the electronics revolution. In particular the personal computer and the Internet revolutionized the science of information publishing and distribution. Now all of a relative sudden the great unwashed could bypass nearly any publishing filter, any editor, and write (post) whatever rubbish they felt the rest of the world deserved to know. Instead of having an established, say, ten million professional and established authors, journalists, and academics, one now has several billion authors (posters) – Twitter this; Facebook that; submitting all sorts or rubbishy (and not so rubbishy) essays on all manner of blogs, personal and corporate, not to mention a plethora of message boards on various web sites. Some message board posters can always seem to manage to post the equivalent of a full-length novel in a month – every month. One Internet thousand word essay/article/news item can now generate hundreds to thousands of online viewer comments (when in the olden days you might get one or two letters-to-the-editor and some talkback radio chitchat) all of which in theory you should also read and fully absorb in order to be fully informed on the issue in question. Anyone could now contribute to an online encyclopaedia or an Internet site devoted to articles on any and every topic you could care to expound upon, or even host their own personal website, inviting all and sundry to have a look-see at their ‘wisdom’.
Part of the information overload problem was the requirement in academic circles to “publish or perish”. I wonder how many professional papers were churned out not because they contributed anything of great significance, but that it was another bit to add to your publications résumé.
Now does it matter so much how much information is out there as long as you feel your own personal information needs are adequately catered for and that you’re coping with what comes your way? From that narrow perspective, probably not.
Does it matter how much information is out there as long as you can find out what you want when you want it? Well, yes, it does matter. Say you want an introductory laypersons guide to quantum physics in book form. Unfortunately, there about thirty such books on the market. Knowing nothing in advance about the subject, how do you choose? Do you pick the most recent; the one with lots of pictures and no maths; the cheapest; the one with Miss Quantum 21st Century gracing the cover; look at Amazon.com customer reviews; or do you call up a quantum physics professor at a nearby university for a recommendation? - Decisions, decisions.
Or say you want some reliable information on ‘crop circles’ and you plug the phrase into Google.com – as I did a few minutes ago – and get over five million hits. You start ploughing through them one by one – how do you know which site of the first 100 is the best? Do you stop at 100 even though maybe hit number 101 is the best and most reliable? Maybe you need to select several for the most balanced coverage. Assuming you don’t have time to check out all five million plus hits, far less research the bona fides of each, well, you’ve been hit with information overload. You’re just going to have to pay your money (or commit your time) and take your chances.
The main problem, as highlighted by the ‘crop circle’ example, post Internet age, is to separate out the quality information from the rubbish; the wheat from the chaff. Even if you have a very narrow selection of interests, most of what you’ll find will be posted by self-styled experts, even downright nutters, relative to those who actually know what they are spouting on about. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to tell the crank from the merely competent to the relative expert.
Another problem is can professionals you rely on keep up-to-date themselves? - Probably not. It’s to your detriment that your local GP really needs a week to absorb new medical information, especially about new drugs, emerging diseases, treatments, tests, etc. that comes out daily. No one in the general medical profession can keep up anymore with the published or online output in medical and pharmacological research. If they tried to I suspect they would have little if any time to see any patients. I suspect that also applies to many already within various medical specialities. The trend to increasing specialization (you keep knowing more and more about less and less) within an already relatively narrow field has been going on for quite a while, and shows no sign of slowing down. There’s no such thing as a lawyer, rather there are property lawyers, criminal lawyers, copyright and trademark lawyers, patent lawyers, commercial lawyers, family lawyers, and those specializing in international law and trade law, plus a host of other legal-eagle divisions.
To be continued…
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