Comments on: How Our Brains Are Affected by Info Overload

By: Wiot.net :: Technology :: Best of the Rest (2/20/09)

Wiot.net :: Technology :: Best of the Rest (2/20/09) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:42:55 +0000

[...] How are our brains dealing with the information overload that seems to be the norm today? [PSFK] [...]

By: shanteru martin

shanteru martin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:51:25 +0000

Its fun jumping all over the place….. how else would be get to see, do, smell, see, draw, draw, draw, see so much. :)

Interruptions are doors to other opportunities!

By: shanteru martin

shanteru martin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:49:17 +0000

Its fun jumping all over the place….. how else would be get to see, do, smell, see, draw, draw, draw, see so much. :)

By: Christine Huang

Christine Huang — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:21:14 +0000

Ha, they actually have a Google Labs feature that alerts you when you’ve been on gmail for a specified chunk of time. It tells you to go out and take a walk. I imagine the kind of person who would feel compelled to enable the feature is the kind of person who would click ‘ignore’ every time it popped up, though. That kind of person is me. :/

By: Scott Lachut

Scott Lachut — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:03:25 +0000

Whatever happened to going outside to play? Do we need cybermoms to tell us when we’ve had our fill? Perhaps someone can engineer an iSelf-Destruct application that shuts us out of our devices when we’ve been on for too long.

By: Floyd

Floyd — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:18:20 +0000

Craig, all I can do is bow down before you!

Nice.

By: Craig Roth

Craig Roth — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:46:12 +0000

I’m a conscientious objector in the war on interruptions. If all interruptions are bad, then outlaw fire alarms because, unless you were planning a fire, all they can do is interrupt you. Interruptions are part of a broader, intertwined set of social, technological, psychological, and process-oriented factors. Dark Age? Only if the folks monitoring your local power plant turn off all interrupting devices.

At a broader level though I’m very much a believer that attention management is a very useful approach and that organizations and individuals can take real steps to manage their attention better.

For enterprises see my Enterprise Attention Management conceptual architecture at http://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com/2006/12/22/my-attention-management-system-conceptual-architecture/
For individuals my Personal Attention Management tips at http://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com/2006/11/29/personal-attention-management-tips/

By: Dan Gould

Dan Gould — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:59:31 +0000

@ Floyd – O wise master – please teach me ignore-fu!!!!

@Christine – great question. Limit wise, hmmm. I’ve been chatting with some people on Twitter about brining smart drugs (amino acids/vitamins etc) back to enhance cognition/brain function in the face of processing burnout. The amino acid DMAE is working well.

By: Christine Huang

Christine Huang — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:57:16 +0000

Also – how can we use this attention-shifting propensity for good? And is there a limit to all of it, a certain amount of distraction where we plateau and can’t process any more incoming info? (If so, I think I’m almost there…)

By: Floyd Hayes

Floyd Hayes — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:55:49 +0000

Great post.

I’d been thinking about this and invented a response to this – called “Ignormation”

I can train you in this arcane art but will have to charge.