Information Overload: How Much Does It Cost?
The space flight of Apollo 11 was a great accomplishment for mankind. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon in a lunar module powered by the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). The AGC had 64Kb memory and 0.043Mhz processing speed. The iPhone I carry in my pocket has 15,000 times more system memory and 30,000 times more processing power. But what is this device and all the information it brings into my life helping me accomplish?
Dwindling Productivity Rates
Am I the only person that feels that they are accomplishing less today than a few years ago? To be fair, in my family-focused life I have more responsibilities at home than I did a few years ago. But in my professional career things just aren’t getting done like they used to. Weekly tasks are being left undone because there simply isn’t enough time to get them accomplished.
I know I’m not the only person feeling this downshift in productivity. The official U.S. productivity numbers have fallen below the long-term average over the past few years. This stands in startling contrast to the productivity boom experienced from 1996 to 2004 during the birth of the web era. I can’t help but think that a large portion of the problem is information overload.
A Few Observations
Last week I was eating lunch while a TV screen in the restaurant displayed a dizzying amount of information about the latest tragic event unfolding in our country. A woman with a history of mental illness had led police on a deadly chase through the capital. The amount of misinformation and postulation presented as fact during the 20 minutes I watched was a disturbing indication of the sensationalism that is now a part of 24-hour news coverage.
I returned to the office to focus on work but found myself constantly distracted by the beeping, buzzing, and dinging of my phone. Notifications of all sorts kept going off, some wanted but mostly unwanted. I was on a deadline so I finally turned my phone off to silence the constant flow of interruptions.
Over the past few days I have come to realize that I am on information overload. A constant flood of information is vying for my attention and many times the critical information is getting lost along the way. But how do I go about filtering out the excess without completely disconnecting and going off the grid? I’ll be experimenting for a month with these ideas….
Turn Off The News
Can people survive in modern society without the news? We have multiple channels spewing out “news” 24-hours a day. Obviously these stations are fulfilling a need in society since they are turning a profit, since that is their ultimate goal. But I don’t have to watch.
The tipping point for me actually came during the summer, but I just didn’t realize it until now. I was reading an article on the website of our local paper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about a crime that had been committed in the area. For some reason, the reporter included over-the-top graphic detail about this crime in the story. The disturbing personal observation is that several months later I can’t tell you what the story was about or what was so disturbing at the time. I have become so desensitized to shocking news that what was once absolutely appalling is forgettable.
I am admittedly a news junkie. If there is breaking news or a current topic I could probably tell you about it. When something big happens in the world I get multiple notifications from multiple apps on my phone. How is all this information making me a better, more productive person? Simply stated, it is not.
Starting today I am turning the news off for a month. I have uninstalled the Associated Press, Fox News, and Star-Telegram apps from my phone. I will avoid the 24-hour news channels, local news, and even comedy parodies of the news. I will try life as a member of the delightfully uninformed. Some of the smartest and most productive people I know don’t follow the news. I am sure the politicians in Washington will continue to be as unproductive as ever while I’m not watching.
Filter Facebook
Facebook is an amazing blessing and a curse. A while back I wrote about a plug-in for Chome and Firefox called Social Fixer. Admittedly it can be a bit wonky (official technical term) since Facebook is constantly changing the coding of the site. I had stopped using the plug-in because it wasn’t working after some major changes to Facebook. I have now reinstalled the latest version and have set up some filters on Facebook.
I appreciate all of the people I keep in contact with on Facebook. I have a wonderfully diverse set of contacts and I believe that Facebook can be a positive, informative way to ‘keep in touch.’ But closely connected to ‘cutting the cord on news’ is the filter I have put on Facebook. I am filtering out political information and spin from my news feed. Following is the initial list of terms I have filtered from Facebook using Social Fixer: Senate, congress, house of representatives, Wendy Davis, Greg Abbott, Constitution, democrat, republican, tea party. I am sure I will be adding terms to the list. I enjoy seeing life updates, photos of your kids, beautiful snowy mountains, Bible thoughts and verses, Fall colors, and even what you’re having for dinner. I can do without the rest.
Additionally I have removed the Facebook app from my phone. The filter doesn’t apply to viewing on my iPhone and I believe that the stream of notifications from Facebook is interrupting my real life. I have also found myself scrolling through Facebook on my phone when I have the opportunity to make wonderful memories with my family. Also gone is the temptation to ‘over-share’ some of my exploits.
Quiet Hours
This is an area where I am actually harnessing the power of technology. The iPhone has a ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature. I have scheduled this feature to automatically engage from noon to 2pm every day. The feature turns off text and phone call notifications from everyone except a list of favorites which contains my closest family members and my daughter’s school. All app and email notifications are also turned off by this function.
This timing allows for a quiet lunch and a respectable amount of uninterrupted study time in the early afternoon. The window of time is also short enough to be able to return phone calls and text messages in a timely manner. If there is an emergency someone will find me.
Email Management
Another notification I have turned off is the incessant email buzz. (In fact, I have turned off all notifications from all apps.) I get hundreds of emails a day which makes my pants pocket vibrate all the time. In addition I have installed the Gmail app which does a better job of using the tabs and filters I have already setup for my Gmail account.
End Goal?
If you’ve made it this far you’re probably wondering what my end goal is for all of this. I believe that information overload has led to a loss in productivity and an increase in mental fatigue. The only way I can be certain of this is with my month-long experiment. Many times my ‘how much does it cost’ series of posts feature measurable ways to save money. Well, time is money and sanity is priceless so let’s kick this experiment off! I’ll update you on subsequent Mondays about my thoughts and insights from the experiment.
How about you? Feeling worn out from the flood of news, information, and notifications? How have you simplified and scaled back? I would be really interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below, and might even incorporate your ideas into my experiment.
Thanks for reading!
I agree that our society is definitely overloaded with information, most of it not worth your time. As you probably remember, we got rid of our TV years ago. But on Sept 11, 2001, we had a TV hooked up out in the apartment next to our house. After hearing the initial report on the radio, we went out to watch the TV to see what was going on. Of course, at that time the “talking heads” didn’t know what was going on, but they just kept talking and repeating themselves and making up things. So, networks news was pretty worthless even back then.
We keep up today by just a few minutes of radio in the morning, a few minutes of Fox News headlines from the computer at night. Occasionally someone says, “Did you hear about __?” and no, we didn’t, but overall we haven’t missed anything important, and we can spend that time thinking good things instead.
Thanks for commenting Sarah! I’ll be honest I feel like I’m going through withdrawl today. I keep reaching for my phone to check things that aren’t there anymore. It just seems that so many are getting a bit crazed by the things that they see on the news and read on the internet. It will be interesting to see what gets accomplished in the next month without news and some of these other distractions.
My wife and I absolutely abhor the way the local news channels glorify violence in all forms and place it high above goodness. I call their their “news” “The murder, death and mayhem report.” Every single day they lead off the show with the most horrendous things one can imagine, family violence, the latest murder reports, shoving a microphone in a grieving mother’s face, showing burned puppies that have been tortured, zooming in on families houses burning to the ground, and on and on. To have this type of “news” shoved in your face every single day can NOT be good for you. It convinces us that there are “monsters around every corner” just waiting to pounce on us. It makes us afraid to let our children play in the front yard or walk to the corner grocery even though these things, in all honesty, are very safe. We have allowed ourselves to be conditioned to believe that there are no good people in poor neighborhoods or that if you go to “this part of town” you are likely to be robbed, or worse. If they can’t find enough horrible things to report locally, they’ll go to California, or New York City, or wherever the most vile, repulsive activity is taking place and “report” it to us.
I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. I don’t want to envision burned puppies and children being shot in the head every morning, noon and night. I believe the local news has a place but it has been dragged down to the lowest common denominator of viewers. Instead of catering to the Devil’s side of life, how about we focus more on God’s side, like showing the reports of churches doing good works in their communities. How about showing more kids making a difference by volunteering to help others (they do this every day, we just don’t hear about it!) or raising money to help a classmate with a strong need for their support. How about showing us the things we need to know, like which highways are going to be closed, or reopened? How about helping unwanted pets get adopted? How about LEADING off with these stories?
They might be surprised and just how many people would prefer not to be bombarded with negativity and horror every day and would choose to watch a positive show that gave us information we could use and people we could look up to as examples of good citizenship.
I hear you Dempsy! I think that is the whole idea behind the news show that is on 52. I think it is called local news or something like that. A lot of familiar personalities are on it and it is geared at human interest stories and not so much of the bad stuff that is going on. You should check it out!
I guess that means you’re blocking my pictures to you of Lucky and my modeling clay diaramas ! BTW, my 52 is a Spanish station.
I’ve been seeing Lucky just fine Ted 😉 I can’t remember which station that new format of newscast is on. Do you remember?
So, I was able to go to a conference a little ways back and came across this lady name Maura Thomas who wrote “Personal Productivity Secrets.” She challenged the idea of information overload with the concept of items that steal our attention thereby stealing our productivity. As she puts it, yes we can get information more quickly, but there has always been more information in the world than a person is able to consume. She sets up a system of how you can stay productive, set realistic goals, and not feel the constant sense of being overwhelmed. Her ideas are really great and I really recommend her book.
Oh here’s her website: http://www.regainyourtime.com/
Thanks for the recommendation Annalisa. I’ll have to check out her stuff. At a quick glance it looks pretty similar to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” or GTD philosophy. A system for stream-lining and processing
I can tell you this, it has been an amazingly wonderful 1.5 days without so many distractions 🙂