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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.
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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