{"id":664,"date":"2020-07-07T15:21:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T09:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2022-08-07T00:44:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T19:14:02","slug":"information-overload","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/information-overload\/","title":{"rendered":"Information Overload, Filtration and Detoxification"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A stranger’s tweet with no proof has the power to shock & anger us. We discuss why people are addicted to information, and how information overload is affecting us & the society today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Information<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Today we live in a world where we are surrounded by information of all sorts \u2013 from short videos, text and images, audio notes\u2026 just unlimited vivid content which is constantly bombarded to us by our friends and family, social media feeds, alerts and notifications. Almost everything seems to be unique, breaking, live, limited\u2026 as if our life depends upon it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why We Like to Overload Ourselves with Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before I talk more about how this information overload is influencing us today, let\u2019s try to understand our brain and how it processes this information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Causes of Information Overload<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of our basic needs is to be safe and secure our future. For this, we are in constant search of information so that we can keep ourselves aware of the dangers we are about to face. The other key need that humans have is a need of passing on information about themselves<\/a> or their thoughts or what I like to call the need for spreading self-information. But the key point is that we like spreading our wisdom (whether it\u2019s originally ours or not) nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you consider these two needs of survival and spreading information, you can find a correlation as they support the one another. In today\u2019s times as well as in the past, the media business thrives upon these needs of ours. Media channels are most often filled with news which makes you insecure, making you conscious about your surroundings, thus motivating you to seek more related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best example of this is the news updates about the number of new Coronavirus cases and deaths. These are currently filling up each newspaper, social media and website. Only the most shocking or scary analysis of these numbers is often presented, so that the audiences are scared and angered, glued to the source, coming back to see if they are becoming worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media, on the other hand, helps you to create information (self images, opinions, videos) about yourself and sharing it with the world. It also helps you spread others\u2019 information other\u2019s information as if it\u2019s your own. It\u2019s common to see the same images being retweeted, copied and pasted on websites, passed around Whatsapp without mentioning the original source. People passing third party information think that they are influencing the people around them. However, they are just succumbing to our need of spreading information.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"How<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Why is Information Overload a Problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By re-sharing and forwarding information, we have distanced ourselves intellectually from each other. Most of the information is very superficial. For example, somebody may have created a video that provides shortcuts to achieve success, but without detailing with any analogical examples. Our brain loves these quick bits of information as it does not need to process much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such informational content is generally viral as our brain accepts without much questioning, as it\u2019s made to believe that someone has already done a lot of research behind it. Our brain works in such a way that it wants to process the least amount of information; else it will be exhausting itself. Thus many times, it creates stereotypes or has pre-judged the outcomes that don\u2019t require much analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we are children, we like to question everything. Being curious makes us find original sources and verify the information. As we grow up, we try less to discover things ourselves, and get used to being bombarded with information without questioning. That’s why adults are more likely to face the challenge of information overload than kids.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Information-Overload-Detox_young_girls_on_iphone-gen-z\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Over the period, we gradually keep losing our ability to make decisions based on facts that we have discovered ourselves. Today we want different information media, recommendation engines, AI algorithms to suggest us options and eventually make the decisions for us, as many at a time as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most common example of this includes Amazon, which recommends us products based on our searches and past purchases, Netflix that does the same with movies and TV shows, and Facebook which automatically fills our feeds with articles or web links based on our likes. All these algorithms ensure we find more of what we like and never have to come across what we don\u2019t like (or at least won\u2019t click).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business of media depends on this. So they keep creating content that either makes us insecure, information could pass on as our own which is intended to influence others, and create information about ourselves that makes us believe that we have now etched our thoughts in the book of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why we Need Information Detox<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Information overload is making us so dependent and addicted to content \u2013 weather it\u2019s on demand or whether is pushed to us \u2013 that are losing our analytical and deductive skills. We have stopped questioning rationale and are judging based on shallow conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information is today being used to sedate ourselves, it\u2019s the new replacement for sleeping pills. We need to strain our eyes in front of a small screen before it puts us to sleep. Every moment we see a vivid image or read a sensational text, information is being absorbed. There\u2019s hardly any processing or reasoning. We are even sedating our kids, so that they don\u2019t bother us. Gone are the days when they would go out in the sun and hurt themselves and learn from real experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"selfie<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Today, we are today confusing information with knowledge, and difference between them is extremely subjective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply said, information overload is an addictive poison for our brain, and that\u2019s why I call the abstinence from it \u201cinformation detox\u201d. So how do we detoxify ourselves with this information overload?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Do Information Detox?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let’s go over a few ways on how to avoid information overload:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trick Your Brain to Crave Less Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When our brain sees a colored video or image, compared to a monochrome video or image, it processes much more information. So try to cut down on watching color, and shift to monochrome or b\/w content. This will make information less appealing to our brains, and it\u2019ll start craving less and less of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"bw<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Think of it like this: if suddenly fries and Coke started tasting worse and worse every time, you\u2019ll soon stop craving them, right? When you attempt this, you may have withdrawal symptoms in the beginning, so it\u2019s easier to migrate to image screens with low saturation. This method is called \u201cwean off\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verify Information Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Next is to verify information sources. We tend to believe content that is either shocking, or brings out a strong emotion, usually anger. Also, our brain loves to believe content that is structured or presented nicely and where delivery of content is crisp and short, as it\u2019s quickly absorbed by our brains. Be cautious of such content. If you are just taking content at its face value, it\u2019s most likely telling you half the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like our bodies, we need to exercise our minds, too. Viral and short bursts of content are like fried food or soft drinks, they can easily absorb and thus are addictive in nature. Detailed content like text and reports are hard to process and digest, and making sense of them requires effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find Out Who Monetarily Benefits from the Information You Consume<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How to deal with information overload? Information detox can further be done by questioning the basics and having the courage to diverge from the crowd. These are often difficult questions and where you won\u2019t find a straight. For example, I have been seeing this campaign which says \u201cMutual Fund Sahi Hai\u201d (gets translated in English to, \u201cMutual Funds are the right choice\u201d). It gets repeated so many times across all media channels, which makes me question the blatant claim. This excessive use of the claim makes me feel that somebody in some office is just trying to mass brainwash a whole generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, if you are a divergent in the crowd and question this, you may be laughed at, as people who may have invested in mutual funds would also want you to invest, so that they don\u2019t go down alone. If it would have been highly profitable, I doubt you be getting a lot of recommendations or someone wouldn\u2019t need to oversell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the best idea is to always question whenever any information is presented to you, ask yourself who may be gaining from such a message. Most information that we receive is for somebody else\u2019s gain. It may not be easy to decipher who is benefiting the most from it, as most marketing is done in the form of viral or easily consumable content these content. But asking yourself that help you limiting the influence of it on your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"monochrome<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Be Curious for Knowledge, not Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Most of us think that we can\u2019t be influenced easily, but we do get influenced gradually. When we see something repeatedly, we too get influenced at a subconscious level. What we need is to be cognizant of our mental limitations of being gullible to viral content, so that we don\u2019t get swayed easily by information overload. We need to work our brains more and question fundamentals just like a child, else this mental laziness will someday make forget our basics human nature of being curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow OpiniOwn.com on StayKeen<\/a> here.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stranger’s tweet with no proof has the power to shock & anger us. We discuss why people are addicted to information, and how information overload is affecting us & the society today. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[640,21,630,639,20,629,631,628,638,637,632,16,636,635,633,634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1222,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/1222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opiniown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}