Information Overload
I love the fact that anyone can share information these days. It is awesome that I can sit at my computer and share my thoughts with world. After all, here YOU are, reading this and welcome.
It’s even cooler that I can find out what other people (including you?) have to say on nearly any topic that I can think of and instantly at that! I actually find myself getting frustrated if a quick blast of Google searches doesn’t produce the information that I am looking for. I start thinking, “Really? Someone must have thought of this before me… where is it?” Sometimes I start searching in German or French if I get really desperate. Translation programs are amazing these days (my language skills are not what they used to be and I often need some help with technical terms).
Remember doing research this way?
I remember the days of Encyclopedias and card catalogues to find research books at the library and hours spent in front of microfiche stations scrolling through articles. Searching in that method was time consuming and boring, especially to an ADHD kid like me. But the search was finite, I could tell how much information was available on any given topic and then dive in and get that information.
Not so anymore!
Now one search leads to massive numbers of articles, which are linked to others, which lead me down side searches to explore related information which may have never occurred to me in the first place… it’s information overload. I love it! But, I have to make sure that I stay on task; I cannot possibly read every article pertaining to the topic of interest. Since I am primarily following Social Media articles and developments currently, you can imagine the wealth of information and the massive amounts of junk out there! I feel like Sherlock Holmes searching down clues and ignoring all the extraneous information; it’s usually an exciting adventure!
Sometimes you just have to take a break.
Typically, I follow my favorite blogs fairly closely through RSS feeds and have Google searches fed to my reader. I browse through those articles first, choose which ones I am going to read and just let the rest go. I make sure that when I venture out on the web looking for new sources and information that I have set aside time to do so. After all, I love to read and learn, but I don’t always have hours to lose to this activity! Today is a reading day, for me… I am about to be sucked in… (willingly & I have set a timer so I will resurface at an appropriate time)…
How do you deal with the tidal wave of information out there?
Agreed, it’s information overload if you let it take over you. Personally I keep up using TweetDeck to manage tweets, Facebook & Linked updates. I use RSS feeds for the key blogs and newsletters. Every two months I clean out my RSS feeds and remove the ones that either don’t seem very interesting anymore or are just posting what everyone else is saying.
I used Tweetdeck for a while, but I’ve been using Hootsuite recently. I especially like it now that I can run it as a desktop app using Prism! I have my RSS feeds going to Google reader; I am constantly amazed at how many times the same articles bubble to the surface. It’s good for the authors, but a hassle when researching. I’ve been using oneforty to check out new software to make things more streamlined. I’m trying out several new things now and will definitely update on those later.
How do I deal with it? It ain’t easy, as they say. But I think you hit the best idea, which is to use a timer. I would add have a daily schedule too. I have a written schedule for when and how long I do each task, i.e. 9-10am:write blog; 10-10:30am: comment on 5 other blogs; 10:30-10:45am: social bookmarking; etc. Then use the timer so you don’t get lost in space.
And what you say about how far-reaching our blogs are these days is truly awesome.
I’m getting my calendar in order, too. Things don’t always go quite as planned, but I get a LOT more done when I start with one!
Whenever my Google searches don’t return results, I immediately blame myself for not phrasing it right. As for how I handle information overload? Not well. That’s why I’m sitting here at the computer alone on a Saturday night feverishly trying to catch up on all the emails that I need to answer and the blogs I promised myself I would read today. I’ll have to look into Hootsuite. Please keep up posted if your find ways to streamline all this!
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Hi, I’m new to the site, thanks for sharing. I use RSS readers to sort through most of my content, but I’m looking into some of the newsletter formats, too.