Information Overload

These days, we have access to gigabytes — in fact, zettabytes — of information right at our fingertips.¹ Our phones provide us access to the web, which alone has enough information available to overwhelm us. Our phones have a plethora of applications that demand our attention through constant notifications. It can be hard to get anything done while the keys to a wealth of knowledge are right in our hands.

Many of us have experienced turning Netflix on and taking forever to pick a movie (there are just so many choices). And Netflix is only one of the many streaming services available to us! Indeed, it would take 47 million years to watch all the HD movies on the web.² There is definitely too much content for us to reasonably ever get through in our lifetime.

It’s hard to make choices and think clearly. On a daily basis, we are presented with hundreds, if not thousands, of options and pieces of information. We become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information we encounter, a phenomenon known as information overload. Information overload can look like difficulty writing a paper at school when it feels like we’ll never be able to sift through all the available knowledge. It might make it difficult to take political stances due to the overwhelming amount of information on both sides. As information overload prevents us from making rational decisions and can cause us to feel fatigued and irritated, it is important to learn more about the phenomenon and how we can avoid its side effects.