With my always-flowing Twitter stream, borderline-unmanageable list of RSS feeds, and more unanswered email that I care to admit, it’s no wonder that I often feel overloaded with information.
The thing is (and I think this is worth reminding myself regularly), most of my own personal information overload is entirely self-induced. So then, here are three things I recently came across on the web (ironically, via RSS feeds), to help remind me of that.
First, an anecdote from from Anil Dash. After returning from a two-week vacation, Anil came to the conclusion that he didn’t miss anything while being away from his RSS feeds and email:
for the most part, I was kind of disturbed at how few things that are truly significant happen in any given two-week period. [...] So, it’s not exactly the most profound observation, and I’m far from the first to make it, but it’s worth noting again: There isn’t that much going on. While the constant flow of information is entertaining and addictive, it is, by overwhelming consensus, primarily filled with bits that are of little to no value.
I called Anil on the telephone yersterday, and he told me the whole story and reflected a bit on the experience. You can listen below or download the MP3:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Second, I sat up and noticed when, after unplugging for 24 hours, Peter Rukavina decided to quit microblogging:
microblogging (the emission of pithy 140 characters-or-less “status updates” through sites like Twitter, Jaiku and Faceboook), while addictive, is, for me, the digital equivalent of empty calories. It took 24 hours out of the loop to realize that while microblogging has the appearance of substance, it shares more in common with a nervous tick than with writing a novel.
Finally, an artistic reminder of self-induced information overload . Via the excellent Radio Berkman podcast, I heard about Metropath(0logies), an installation at the MIT museum:
Metropath(ologies) is a new installation about living in a world overflowing with information and non-stop communication. The sounds and visual imagery incorporate live and recorded data ranging from personal updates and private information, to global news reports. Visitors may choose to become part of the exhibit, their images captured by surveillance cameras, their names entered into databases, their voices recorded and played back by in the echoing soundtrack.
What about you? How do you manage the constant flow of digital information? How much of it could you cut out if you wanted or needed to?
[Original image from pushandplay's beautiful collection of data visualizations]
February 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Most of my overload would probably be self-induced. I keep my email program open in the background pretty much all the time in case I get an urgent email. However, I don't let myself check my feed subscriptions more than a couple times a day.
Pruning is also important, particularly when it comes to subscriptions–not so much the dead or rather inactive feeds, but the active feeds you find yourself ignoring on a regular basis. I have to ask myself, "is this really something I need to know about the moment it's published, or can I just stop by this site once every couple of weeks and read?"
I have to agree with Anil that constant monitoring of one's information flow isn't going to be very satisfying. If I end up on the Twitter search page looking at which topics are trending at the moment, I know I need to go do something productive–there's no reason I should be there. Likewise, if I'm out all day and come back to fifty articles in my feed subscriptions, I don't need to process them all at once. They aren't going anywhere. I subscribe to several CBC news feeds, and CBC publishes new articles throughout the day; sometimes I'll come home to fifty news stories, and I know I don't need to read all of them.
I use a cool Firefox extension called "Read It Later". It allows me to add any page I visit to my reading list, which I can then access from my toolbar and read at a later time–pretty much a feature-rich bookmark. You can even sync your reading list across browsers if you like. Using this extension helps, because I can postpone reading or watching interesting items without worrying that I'll forget about them when I do have the time.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:21 am
I'm constantly revising my systems for managing all this information overload. Several thousand unread articles in my RSS reader, hundreds of emails per week, 50 podcasts waiting to be listened to, twitter streams, a stack of books (both e and paper) etc. etc.
Sure it's self induced, but it sure is better than rabbit ears and single newspaper. I'm interested in a lot of stuff and it's great to connect with people who are the same way. Even 5 years ago it wasn't possible.
It's easy to stay on top of everything once you realize you don't need to stay on top of everything. Twitter is for those short escapes during the day — if I miss 1,000 tweets it's not the end of the world. My RSS reader has a nifty 'Mark all as read' button — Seth and Hugh won't mind if I miss one or two posts, will they?
My only firm rule is with email. Empty that gmail box every single night. Gotta get it to zero. Try not to think about the 100 starred messages that need my attention — if they're important, they'll show back up in my inbox eventually.
If I had to cut it all out, I could do it. But it would hurt. It would hurt like if your parents moved you across country when you were 13 and you had to start making new friends again. But you couldn't because your parents didn't move to a city — they moved to The Bush. So you'd talk to animals and give the trees names and carry around a small flat rock and call it an iPhone. And you'd finally have time to write that perfect book of poems but it would be all mixed up — poems about squirrels on Facebook and the fish using Twitter (but they'd call it Bubbls.) Yeah, something like that. It would hurt a lot…
February 21st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I'm not sure where to start as this is the most obvious and valuable message about content flow, period. I'll leave the rest for now and take a rest after this comment.
Someone other than me may eventually recognized that Twitter might have been named by the VC in the Valley (of Greed) as a variant of the name used to describe the people (TWITS) taking their valuable time to post on a phone.
Cheers,
Nick
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 am
I once read an illuminating comparison of microblogging to the sounds that primates make when living in large groups. It turns out there is no discernible meaning in these sounds, and the monkeys only make them to remind other monkeys of their existence.
Is Twitter any different?
February 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Tweets and transformation: Trad media meets social media…
I moderated a panel at Northern Voice today called Tweets and transformation: How social media is changing…
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 am
This is something I forgot to write about in my original comment. It's easy to overuse Twitter and turn it into meaningless background noise. However, microblogging offers a convenient solution to another form of information overload: linkspamming (or whatever you care to call it).
I'm sure all of us have done it–I'm particularly guilty: you find an interesting site, video, etc., and you can't wait to share it with your friends. Back in the pre-Twitter era, I would IM those friends whom I thought would like the item and urge them to look at it. This was disruptive for both myself and my friends. But if I didn't share it immediately, I'd often forget to share it later.
Microblogging offers a good compromise between immediate and delayed gratification. Rather than spamming my friends with links or saving them up for a longer blog post full of links, I can tweet a link if I find something interesting. My friends will presumably see the tweet and check it out of if they so desire–as an added bonus, people I don't know have the ability to see what I like, and that's caused me to make some new friends.
The live coverage of events like the Canadian election or the Mumbai attacks demonstrates the usefulness of Twitter. I saw some pretty sharp comments (from both sides) in the search feed during the Canadian election; it was not just the hooting of monkeys (although there was some of that too!).
It's the temptation to tweet for the sake of tweeting, to tweet merely to say, "I'm here! Look at me!" that must be avoided.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:26 am
For me, my RSS feeds are like the headlines in a newspaper, I glance at them all, and if something catches my eye, I'll take the time to read it, or perhaps skim it. Same thing with twitter, I use it to keep up with what people are talking about on the net without actually having to find out about it myself (unless I'm genuinely interested that is). The problem with all of the information on the internet is that so much of it is about… well the internet. How does that old saw go? The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
I think of the net like the lake under a canoe. I need it to get where I'm going, there's a lot to be gained from it, I have an interest in keeping it free and the right amount of it at the right time, will satisfy almost any thirst.. but at the risk of over extending a metaphor, if you try to drink it all in you're gonna drown.
Cheers from the wrong end of Sunday morning,
~G
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
With Facebook, my blogs, the Cybernightlife project (traditional website), and my channel on YouTube (which contains railroad videos), I would say that the information overload is somewhat self-induced.
Some of the overload is a result of years old technology collecting information and selling the resulting e-mail addresses to marketers.
Others are the result of online shopping (e.g. fragranceX.com, kohls.com).
I find that the surgence of information overload, is confined to Facebook, and fortunately stays in Facebook.
Personally, I am getting the impression that Facebook is becoming a complete waste of time, and though I have slowly but surely collected a list of four "friends" over the past month I have been on Facebook.
The information overload there is mostly rubbish (though I could think of a few words that would better suit the description, but this is a family friendly forum) that I simply ignore.
To think I have intended to use Facebook for networking of Linux/UNIX users and to promote the use of Free and Open Source Software. Instead, it has turned into a forum of people whose only thing in common is that they share the same hometown.
(Clearly, this is NOT what I wanted from Facebook.)
As for e-Mail, having G-Mail solved the problem of unwanted messages. I used to get ten times the amount of unwanted messages back in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade. Once I got connected through my Linux machines, that mess stopped.
My information overload may be self induced, but at least I have control over what I see, and am in a position to do something about it.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Thanks for the shout-out for Radio Berkman Dan! I'm a big fan of Spark and produce the RB podcast, but in my out of work life, I've been attempting an "electronic media fast" for the month of February for just the reasons you are talking about – self-induced overindulgence in perhaps needless web interaction. I work in electronic media, so it hasn't been going incredibly well, but that is part of the challenge of it, you know? It's gotten so tough not to web surf that I've put my surfing habits up online for all to see at timelope (http://www.timelope.com/dandennis). I'm hoping that the experience of radical transparency will make me regulate myself better and think about the diet of web-based information that I bring in.
I'm not a naysayer on microblogging. For me, twitter is the next best thing to being at an awesome non-stop party with my best friends (and a few favorite celebrities – @MrsKutcher). Facebook is awesome. I laugh at people who say they can get by checking their email only twice a day. Wikipedia and Google, I feel are making people a little bit more literate, open-minded, connected, and informed, on the whole. But the danger is when you become too unconscious about the presence of these influences in your life. People should be aware, just as we would expect people to be aware of their own diet, carbon footprint, and bank balance.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:04 am
When I moved out on my own, I didn't bother to get an answering machine. This meant that I would come home and there would be no "you have a message" excitement…but there would be no "you have no messages" letdown either. There is a line round the block of technologies that want to enter my life, and like any houseguest, each brings its own particular delights and turmoil. So the cellphone was not invited in…but the mp3 player was. Yes to email, but no to Facebook. We all select our own technologies to adopt, and I think that as long as we continue to worry about what we're missing when we unplug, we will have a hard time letting go.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I never subscribe to feeds, but instead only listen to podcasts I download myself.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I find that if I'm really 'in the zone' and focused on something, it's easy to ignore those distractions. I really find that I let myself be distracted when I'm procrastinating. If I find myself compulsively checking my email, it's almost certainly because I'm either unsure about what I'm (supposed to be) writing, or because I don't want to do it.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I believe that humans have not really changed much from prehistoric times. We are just cavemen with loads of gadgets to keep us entertained until we revert to worm fodder.
What would a cavemen see as important? News must needs be related to the 500 people closest to him/her as well as the condition of the environment, especially food related. Everything else would be stories.
Knowing the name of the leader of a tribe many moons travel hence is Barrack Obama would be irrelevant to their survival. Knowing of Obama today is also irrelevant to our survival. None of our opinions means squat in the grand scheme so back to basics.
What's going on with my family, friends, co-workers is important. Knowing what is going on in the environment is also important, especially that which is related to my job (food gathering). Everything else is infotainment. Sure is interesting though… -jon
March 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
[...] Anil Dash unplugged for two weeks, and didn’t miss anything (more audio from Anil) [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I'm curious about the filename of spark_20080220_anildash.mp3 — Was this an old interview, or a typo? I noticed a few older filenames linked from newer blog articles. Some of them were actually older, but this one I had not heard before.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Keen eye, Russell. It's a typo.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] you who liked my post the other day about not missing anything while I was offline might also enjoy a conversation I had with CBC Radio’s show Spark, part of which will be on the air today. Canadians can hear [...]
April 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
[...] you who liked my post the other day about not missing anything while I was offline might also enjoy a conversation I had with CBC Radio’s show Spark, part of which will be on the air today. Canadians can hear [...]