Based on the comments to this post, I suspect the real divide is over whether our systems are effective and reliable at turning data into knowledge, which really gets back to your first point about filtering. If you think the filtering process works reliably at letting people make good decisions, and you believe the filters will keep working reliably as the information flow increases, then you’d naturally think that more information is necessarily better–after all, the amount of signal’s going to grow with the amount of noise. On the other hand, if you think too much information will break the filters, or you think some of them might already not be as effective as they should be, then you might expect there will come a point of information overload, or even think we might have passed that point.

Based on the comments to this post, I suspect the real divide is over whether our systems are effective and reliable at turning data into knowledge, which really gets back to your first point about filtering. If you think the filtering process works reliably at letting people make good decisions, and you believe the filters will keep working reliably as the information flow increases, then you’d naturally think that more information is necessarily better–after all, the amount of signal’s going to grow with the amount of noise. On the other hand, if you think too much information will break the filters, or you think some of them might already not be as effective as they should be, then you might expect there will come a point of information overload, or even think we might have passed that point.

This is just false. There are short term upticks, certainly, but over any long term time span (like since 1995, or 1945, or 1900) all 4 of those indicators have improved. “Social problems” might be hard to measure, but even there I feel pretty confident with a subjective measure. If we consider say “racism” and “sexism” to be social problems in this country, I’d say we’ve done a really good job over the last 100 years to improve; though obviously there is always room for more!

Secondly, to a large extent, people 10/50/100 years ago were totally unaware of those problems around the world. Today, a vastly larger number are. Do you think that perhaps information had something to do with that? It seems rather obvious that even if these problems are bad, we must know about them before acting on them. No one is saying the internet will magically fix the world. But it can help.

“even if one stumbles upon it most people’s opinions are formed more by the mainstream media than what they unearth for themselves.”

So your response is to agree that we have too much information? That seems like a peculiar response.

Mathias: “Our ability to sort, order and sift information does not limit information overload it just provides us with a seemingly more unanimous view of reality and the truth”

Doesn’t this statement seem to be internally contradictory to you? How can this be true? Imagine that google returned only 1 result for any question — the “generally accepted result.” Then we would be exactly in the same situation as if google didn’t exist at all — we would all be forced to accept the conventional wisdom because we physically couldn’t know anything else.

Does anyone think that the United States (or the world) is more unanimously in agreement on any issue today than we were 10, 50 or 100 years ago? Do Americans today, even those portrayed on major news networks, seem like a people unified in thought and action? I too bemoan the way that so many people placidly accept certain principles, but in no way can you argue that it is more prevalent today than it was in the past.

There are more nutty religions, theories, philosophies, political views, principles and ideas running around than ever before. You could argue perhaps that the internet grants a megaphone to people whose ideas are demonstrably false, but to argue that “increased information” has led to some kind of universal unanimity seems… well, totally and completely at odds with the world around us.

“Few people actually look for important stories outside the media focus. Few people (seem to) use the internet to penetrate the accepted media view of “the facts”.”

It sounds like you think there should be MORE information so that people should more easily find “non-accepted” views. Yet you’re agreeing with Postman’s view that “information overload” is bad? It seems like your viewpoint is that we should reduce all the information available, but just somehow magically change all the “accepted views” to the right ones.

“The main use of the Internet seems to be to reinforce the traditional channels and viewpoints”

Which internet are you using? The one I use has millions of websites blaring the most controversial and bizarre standpoints on every topic, many of which receive millions of hits every day. Are you seriously arguing that the internet has led to some kind of calcification of opinion?

Really? There are certainly plenty of problems in the world, but I don’t think it’s at all obvious that any of these problems are getting worse. The War in Iraq is pretty tame compared to World Wars I or II. In World War II, for example, the USSR suffered 23 million deaths—roughly the population of Iraq. I don’t think there’s been a conflict that’s come close to that level of barbarity since.

On the famine and despotism front, I can’t find any hard data, but given the general increase in world GDP and particularly the rapid growth of Asian countries, I would be shocked if there are more famines today than 50 or 100 years ago. And I’m pretty sure more people live under liberal democracies today than at any point in the history of the world.

I have access to almost unlimited sources of data concerning (say) Unfair Trade and World Poverty, but my accesss to this has no effect on either of these issues unless I take positive action in the real world, not Cyberspace.

It seems to me, partially as a consequence of the “enabling” technologies that comprise cyberspace, our scope for action, and the effectiveness of that action seems to be diminishing. As Mathias points out the “lumpemness” of the Interweb seems to reinforce received wisdoms, rather than to question them. The truth may well be “out there”, but even if one stumbles upon it most people’s opinions are formed more by the mainstream media than what they unearth for themselves.

People are almost totally cynical about the utterences of our supposed leaders, yet ironically seem also to become increasingly disbelieving of alternative sources and viewpoints. I think we now believe that everything we read, see and hear is so subject to manipulation by “them” that we can trust nothing and nobody.

I have access to almost unlimited sources of data concerning (say) Unfair Trade and World Poverty, but my accesss to this has no effect on either of these issues unless I take positive action in the real world, not Cyberspace.

It seems to me, partially as a consequence of the “enabling” technologies that comprise cyberspace, our scope for action, and the effectiveness of that action seems to be diminishing. As Mathias points out the “lumpemness” of the Interweb seems to reinforce received wisdoms, rather than to question them. The truth may well be “out there”, but even if one stumbles upon it most people’s opinions are formed more by the mainstream media than what they unearth for themselves.

People are almost totally cynical about the utterences of our supposed leaders, yet ironically seem also to become increasingly disbelieving of alternative sources and viewpoints. I think we now believe that everything we read, see and hear is so subject to manipulation by “them” that we can trust nothing and nobody.

Yes the information is out there and people have the ability to pick it up. No longer will the excuse that “we had no way of knowing” be valid. Yet despite this the information is still limited.

Few people actually look for important stories outside the media focus. Few people (seem to) use the internet to penetrate the accepted media view of “the facts”.

The main use of the Internet seems to be to reinforce the traditional channels and viewpoints. Despite the fact that alternative views of the truth are out there.

Our ability to sort, order and sift information does not limit information overload it just provides us with a seemingly more unanimous view of reality and the truth.

Boy did I wake up on the pessimistic side today