Taming the Information Cacophony

The TED blog points us to a discussion going on about information overload, its effects, and how to manage it. Samuel Jones has some interesting comments on James Surowiecki’s recent New Yorker article. Jones feels that the problem might not be too much info (as Surowiecki believes), but too few ways to frame it and understand it. Both authors offer good input on this timely and important topic.

Jones explains his theory:

It’s not that masses of information is a bad thing, far from it.  What is an issue, however, is how we manage it.  The more we know, the more fragmented we can become, and – as Onora O’Neill wrote in her Reith Lectures – the harder it becomes to trust and operate within the institutions by which we seek to manage our society, and that ranges from businesses and Local Authorities to the very idea of the market.

The information Surowiecki writes about in his New Yorker article could well be applied to the public’s wider exposure to a vast range of cultural stimuli, from food to websites, and from TV programmes to publishing.  That leads to some big questions – if we’ve seen an apocalypse in the markets that has resulted in part from a surfeit of information, what is happening more generally?  What lessons can we take about how we approach, manage and react to information?

Demos Blog: “Crowded Thoughts”

[via TED Blog]