Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Too much information makes us shallower

Roger Bohn, co-author of the study, said: “I think one thing is clear: our attention is being chopped into shorter intervals and that is probably not good for thinking deeper thoughts.”

“They are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel. [And] much of what they are exposed to is superficial. People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming cut off and disconnected from other people.”

SHOOT: Fascinating article and it seems some scientists believe that the exposure to these huge streams of information will cause our brains to evolve even further.
Information overload illustration

The speed of modern life is 2.3 words per second, or about 100,000 words a day. That is the verbiage bombarding the average person in the 12 hours they are typically awake and “consuming” information, according to a new study.

Through emails, texting, internet surfing, reading and other media, our brains are being deluged with increasing quantities of information. Although we may not actively read 100,000 words a day, that is the approximate number reaching our eyes and ears. Add images, such as videos and computer games, and we are faced with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information each day — enough to overload the typical laptop inside a week.

The study, How Much Information?, by the University of California, San Diego, estimates the total amount of words “consumed” in the United States has more than doubled from 4,500 trillion in 1980 to 10,845 trillion in 2008. Those estimates do not include people simply talking to one another.

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