View Single Post
Old 11-01-2010, 07:53 AM   #2 (permalink)
snowy
Kick Ass Kunoichi
 
snowy's Avatar
 
Location: Oregon
I don't think being addicted to information is anything new for me, to be honest. I love learning, I love knowing about things, and the Internet certainly facilitates me there. I'm a curious person, and I like having the answers at my fingertips.

I think what's concerning is the kind of information we're addicted to--there's a difference between learning all of the elements of the periodic table and obsessing over celebrity gossip. Personally, I trend more towards the former than the latter, and I suppose we can't all be meditating on serious concepts all of the time. I do enjoy Facebook.

Whether we think about it or not, every time we communicate with someone else--be it in real life or online, we are communicating information. So while I do think the Internet gives us unprecedented access to information, I'm not sure it's entirely to blame for information overload, or our inability to communicate with one another. Information overload could easily happen in a college lecture, for example. The kind of inability to communicate you mention could also happen to someone immersed in too many books.

Truly, if you think about it, we've always been addicted to information; we've always wanted to know the news, what was going on. The Internet is just our latest tool to do that with, and it is a very good tool. I think sometimes we do need the space to consider how good of a tool it is for that, and understand how it can be overwhelming and time-consuming.
__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
snowy is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360