The Mind Under Siege

Beat Information Overload

In today's digital society, our minds are under siege. We feel this from the moment we open our eyes and pick up our smartphones until the moment we fall asleep at night. Our minds are filled with tasks to complete, dates to remember, and expectations we need to fulfill. We can’t seem to keep it all in front of us. We are constantly deluged with information that grows by the minute. The exponential growth of information we are required to absorb daily is impacting the way we work, live, and play. The rate at which our world is changing is fast and accelerating at breakneck speed, yet our minds are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Author and filmmaker, Rick Smolan states that a person in the 15th century would need their entire life to be exposed to the amount of information that the average person today experiences every day. The effects of this information overload are affecting us in ways that impact every aspect of our lives. We are experiencing more stress than ever before and a general sense of being overwhelmed.

Understanding the Enemy

Information overload is the enemy that is silently creeping up on us daily. It is changing our lives in a subtle yet dramatic way. We’ve gradually moved from a quiet simplistic world to one that is dominated by information. However, we've barely acknowledged this change. By examining our environment and understanding the limitations on our internal memory, we can begin to form a foundation of understanding and overcome information overload.

You have to come to understand the limitations of your capabilities and establish the correct fundamental skills and techniques to overcome these limitations successfully. This will help you to reach new levels of productivity in your life. There are those among us that have quietly designed their lives based on their wishes. This creates a sense of control and calmness in today's chaotic world. Before you can reach this sense of power and calm you have to carefully examine yourself and your limitations.

Social Media’s Role in Information Overload

Social media changed how the world communicates and shares information. Technological breakthroughs have drastically changed the way we obtain our news and information. In fact, 61 percent of people today get most of their news online.

Before the Internet made it possible for anyone to publish information, we relied on professional journalists to research stories and deliver to us what they discovered. Governments and corporations controlled this information, and there was often a delay in sharing information. People huddled around their televisions to be informed of world events. If companies wanted to share news or information about their business, they would have to write a press release and have it distributed to traditional media channels. The media channels would then decide what information they would share with their viewers. Companies who wanted to market to their consumers through traditional media would have to pay for advertising slots and commercial slots,
which could cost them millions.

Traditional media, in essence, is very structured and predictable. There are certain rules and guidelines that have to be followed. Despite the idea of "freedom of speech" those working in traditional media are limited in what they can say and do. The information that you get from traditional media is often hierarchical, biased, and non-interactive. If you want to share your opinion about a news item, you have to mail a letter to the editor or producer of the show. Compared to today’s media, the exchange of information and ideas is relatively slow in traditional media.

Enter Social Media

In 2002, two full years before Facebook launched, Jonathan Abram created the online social network site, Friendster, starting the idea of social networking sites and social media. The new social networking sites began a trend of online communication versus face-to-face communication. They allowed you to quickly find out what was going on with family and friends by just logging onto the site. If you have an Internet connection, you have the ability to communicate with anyone in the world quickly and inexpensively. This new ability to exchange information was quick and free-flowing.

After MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of other social networking sites were introduced, a whole new world was opened for people around the globe. Add to this the ability to blog and keep online journals; people can more easily share their opinions and ideas freely with people around the world. Since 2002, the Internet has exploded with an abundance of information.

As we began spending more and more time on the Internet interacting with others, governments and corporations started to take notice. Soon, businesses began to realize that for them to keep up with this new era of information and attract new customers, they were going to have to start participating in social media as well. This caused the exchange of information to become even more rampant. Now, instead of being exposed to just news and information, we have corporate communication, promotions, and ads, thrown into the mix.

This has brought about a new way for businesses to market and advertise to consumers. Companies have started to create social media strategies and campaigns to interact with consumers. Social sites like Twitter are no longer a place for people to share what they were doing that day. With the rise in popularity of social media sites, the idea of quantity over quality has become more prevalent.

To gain more friends on Facebook or get more followers on Twitter, people will say anything and everything, so they can be seen on internet search engines. This has resulted in the quantity of information exchanged becoming more important than the quality of information available. Now, people have to wade through the muddy waters of the Internet to find information that matters the most.

A Flood of Information

Not that long ago, we would sit down to breakfast and read the morning news or watch on the TV to find out what was happening in the world. Then we would have gone about our day. With social media, we can receive our information in real time. Anything that is happening in the world is broadcasted instantly on social media. We've entered a time where anyone can share news and information in a split second.

Information and news have become like a river, constantly flowing into our lives. The flow of communication is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The information we receive has reached
exponential proportions. Managing and processing this continuous flood of information has become an enormous challenge for most people.

There is an upper limit to how much information your mind can process at once. When you multitask, your brain isn't able to handle things efficiently. By nature, we're curious creatures, and we like to be knowledgeable and seek out information. So, when there is a continuous flood of information, it can be difficult for us to turn it off. We feel the need to know more. However, all the information coming into our brains at once can be detrimental to our health.


Source: Beat Information Overload by Aurelius Tjin