Too much information?

[Inwood]

In the "Information Age" of the Internet and several 24-hour cable news channels, do we the general public have too much information at our fingertips? Especially with the Internet, fact-based news stories are often skewed and biased based on who is reporting them. Headlines are salacious in order to rope people in, but with the short attention span most people seem to have they rarely make it past the headline much less the first paragraph, so they often don't get the full story. Email chains proclaiming this and that are 99% of the time incorrect yet people forward them with glee and gladly believe whatever they read without verifying the facts. As a result, we have a misinformed population who spreads more bad info, and the trend multiplies.

Thoughts?

 

[Narcissism is fun]

People aren't interested in the truth, all they want is information that confirms their own truths even more.
http://www.xkcd.com/545/

 

[Paws]

In the "Information Age" of the Internet and several 24-hour cable news channels, do we the general public have too much information at our fingertips?

No, but too little privacy.

 

[Inwood]

Quite the contrary.

I believe an overload of information is the best way to find the truth. Think about it; if you compare and contrast each and every news article on a certain subject, there would be a common theme running through a very high percentage of them; that is the truth.

The problem you state in the second paragraph, however, is a product of modern society; everything has to be done at a breakneck pace because, you see, doing everything you can and never stopping to take a break = a good, well-lived life.

I agree with you on your first point, however, we have very few who actually take the time to compare and contrast. They get their info from one or two sources and treat it as if it were gospel.

Your second point I agree with 100%.

 

[jonboy1645]

One major problem I see with the information superhighway is the need some feel to host quantity over quality. For example, 24 hour news - sometimes there just aren't 24 hours of things to talk about, so time is filled with rehash, or just any drivel to keep the stream going. Also, the race to fill this space does lead to inaccuracy, because heaven forbid you have information that's 10 minutes old but accurate.

The second example happened to me today. As I was at work, listening to information straight from the source, which would be newsworthy. As if right on cue, a major news organization reported it, with materially incorrect information about 7 minutes later.

 

[levenshulme31]

One major problem I see with the information superhighway is the need some feel to host quantity over quality. For example, 24 hour news - sometimes there just aren't 24 hours of things to talk about, so time is filled with rehash, or just any drivel to keep the stream going. Also, the race to fill this space does lead to inaccuracy, because heaven forbid you have information that's 10 minutes old but accurate.

The second example happened to me today. As I was at work, listening to information straight from the source, which would be newsworthy. As if right on cue, a major news organization reported it, with materially incorrect information about 7 minutes later.

That's one of the curiosities of 24 hour news networks. They have a pathalogical need to get a story on screen as soon as it happens without bothering to do any actual journalism. They seem to think that endless speculation and waffle is the same as investigation and the impartation of actual knowledge. One of my biggest annoyances is when there is a major incident such as a plane crash, they cover the story then spew out streams of crap about what might have caused the crash, asking inane questions of anyone near an airport about why it happened. Just once I'd like to see someone from the airline or the FAA, when asked by some bouffanted bint with a microphone, with the plane which is still smouldering in the background, what caused it to crash to answer "How could we possibly know the answer? Come back in six months when the investigation is complete and we'll tell you. Now fuck off, I have important work to do."

Alternatively they run 15 minutes of news stories on a repeating cycle which gives the impression that in the entire world, only 6 things of note happened today, none of which involved anyone remotely foreign (unless they were evil/perverted/doing something wacky).

 

[BabiGayPimp]

It's the shallowness of the information and the over-reliance on trendy catch-prharses and buzzwords that concerns me. And the excessive perkiness with which information is presented is irritating as well. People just have to be more discerning in how they process information to avoid becoming part of the problem.