Information Overdose

I agree with Bree Nordenson in Overload! But here’s the catch. Or at least what I think it is. News organizations are not just fighting the good fight against the Internet and trying to make money. They are also fighting the shrinking attention spans of news consumers. I know I have cringed at every reading on the New York Times simply because I know I have to read four pages of intensive coverage. As a person who only ‘consumes’ news online, I want to read the bare minimum and ‘see’ the other content in audio/video/slideshow/podcast format. I used the words ‘consume’ and ‘see’ because I no longer just read news online as is limited by traditional newspapers. I also no longer have to listen to the radio or watch the news on television. But this too does not explain why I think news organizations, as a system, have failed me. Could it be because I want as much news crammed into as short a presentation? Or is it because I want updated news, and not have to read the whole story from the beginning? I’ll never know.

Convergence and web 2.0 tools have ensured that I can effectively consume news from the realm of infinite possibilities. And part of those infinite possibilities is the ability to multitask. Like I said in a previous blog post, I *heart* technology. This is because it allows me to walk, chew gum, look left and right before I cross the road and talk to my friend walking beside me. This, while she decides where we’re going for dinner (she’s a vegetarian) and finding it on MapQuest. I also have multiple tabs open and switch between them because I can’t seem to get myself to read a whole NYT story at one shot.

But it’s also this multitasking that has gotten me into a lot of habits that I seem to be unable to get out of. I compulsively check emails, listen to imeem and read the news while I’m on the bus. This, fully knowing that I have just done all this at home – before I got on the bus. This multitasking ability that makes sure I get a lot done and in time, is also debilitating me. I can’t remember anything without Google Calendar and I can’t seem to run without my mp3 player (yes, I don’t own an iPod!). I also seem to have lost the ability to talk to random people on the bus. In India, that was all I did – and I have made some very good friends out of those bus rides. Here, with everyone doing something or the other – reading a book (grad students, here is your cue to nod in approval) or just listening to your iPod – it seems very hard to communicate! That said, I also have to admit that checking email or reading headlines on my phone while I ride the bus to school might be more productive than staring out the window, looking at advertisements or businesses along the route trying to attract me as a consumer.

And with the exponential penetration of technology, this is what the world will look like in 10 years: