Information overload is a growing problem in the 21st century. We have more information available to us than ever before in all aspects of life. It can be overwhelming, especially for people who have to make critical decisions based on it. Today there is more content available than ever. No exaggeration! The amount of information floating around our digital world has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade. With this much information, where do you start? How can you begin to filter out what’s important? How can you continue to grow in knowledge without feeling like you’re drowning in it all?
We’re drowning in content. It feels like there is more information published every day. Articles, videos, reports, podcasts, blog posts, ways to learn how to do our job better. It’s hard to go a day without stumbling across a learning resource.
Content is everywhere. Finding what you want online can be a real challenge. There are so many options available for reading, listening to, watching, or otherwise consuming content that it can sometimes paralyze us. We don’t know where to go first, so we just keep bouncing around from site to site until we are exhausted or give up altogether.
‘ Information overload ’ occurs when a person receives too much information, resulting in the inability to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant data.
Despite being well-informed, people can feel indecisive, stressed, and ineffective in their reaction to the influx of information available, resulting in a poor decision or reaction.
The internet is now considered by many to be a form of mass media, and companies now feel that they need to produce as much content as possible just to keep up with demand.
The illusion of free information:
The internet’s capacity to absorb information is almost limitless. But a great deal of useful data is irrelevant to you. All the information that is thrown at us seems useful or at least advertised to be so. And I’m not going to make a blanket statement, saying all the information is not valuable for you. In fact, this information could help you.
All of this is fine, but at what expense?
What water is to the oceans, information is to the internet. Just for the sake of this blog, consider that ocean water is drinkable. Just because there is an unlimited supply of it, does it mean you have to keep drinking it? Obviously not. Just because there is so much free information available, doesn’t mean you have to consume all of it. Consuming a lot leads to a lot of problems. In fact, a lot of content is put out, prioritising sales/business over integrity. You wouldn’t want to fall into that trap, would you?
Causes of information overload
The internet democratised information creation. Massive amounts of new data are created on a regular basis. In many businesses, the need to develop and compete in the information provided has resulted in a quantity over quality affect — the ease with which you can create, duplicate and share information on the internet. The growing amount of historical data that is now available to us adds to the snowball. There’s also a lot of inconsistent, contradicting, and just plain wrong information out there.
How to tackle it?
Instead of searching for everything, search exclusively to locate something.
It’s the age of information, and drowning in content is one of the most complex problems faced even by Search Engine Optimisers that are supposed to show you the content you are looking for. No matter how many tools you use to retrieve information, you can still drown in content with no clear direction of what action to take next.
We will now see a few habits we can adopt to tackle information overload. Make a data queue and work through it on a regular basis. Don’t feel obligated to deal with information as it comes in; set it aside and deal with it later when you have more time. Filter information as thoroughly as possible. Create filters in your e-mail inbox to guarantee that only the most important messages reach you during the day. Reduce the quantity of information you obtain from Google by using filters in your searches. Deal with only what is relevant and/or significant. Assign information obligations to others. If you’re on a team, don’t assume you know everything; instead, encourage people to specialise and then rely on their knowledge.
The Big Bang of the Internet is no joke. Technology which was supposed to be our saviour has become the arch-enemy. There is no piece of software/platform that has been built keeping in mind the best interests of the learners.
Save yourself from the content tsunami. You can collate all your important pieces of information, take notes, make reminders, track all your courses’ progress… It’s literally the one platform for all your learning needs. Make learning sustainable over the long term with Zuperly! We’ve built Zuperly as a learner-centric platform and will continue to do so. Pass through the Internet through Zuperly.
