The Blame Game: Information Overload or Filter Failure?

“Information overload is when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to process to make sensible decisions.”  (Infogineering)

This is to say that while online, you are introduced to more e-mail, advertisements, social networking, etc than you are able to process. But doesn’t one choose and control how engaged they are with the Web? If the above statement were true, and engaging with web content were too much for society to handle, then no one would enjoy using it.The opposite argument is that people mistake the use of broken filters for increased amounts of information. Clay Shirky loosely defines this concept in the video footage of the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo in NY.

However, I don’t believe that either of these terms are relevant to society. If there's an issue with one’s engagement with Web content concerning overload or an inability to properly process content, then I believe that the user is suffering from personally inflicted overconsumption, if anything.

For example, Shirky introduces spam e-mail as an example of filter failure. No matter how many settings one enables in attempt to get all ads and junk e-mails sent to a trash folder, a few always manage to sneak into your inbox, forcing you to manually sort and delete them. It used to be that a simple designation of directing spam to spam folders would have sufficed. But as technology has advanced, more of the same sites you were already visiting are changing their methods. Online shops now send newsletters and coupons to previous customers. Entering your e-mail address on certain shady sites releases your information to other sites, usually without your knowledge. It is not that the spam has significantly increased in volume, but that it has changed its format. Because you have relations with the online shop via purchases, your e-mail doesn't mark the newsletters as spam. To solve this, in Shirky’s opinion, you must change the way which your e-mail processes your spam mail in order to fit these new advertising formats, because clearly your previous filter has failed you.

By Toffler’s definition, this is not overload because the sorting of spam generally has no effect on one’s ability to process the rest of their e-mails or make sensible decisions. If anything, it’s just a hassle.  Furthermore, the issue with Shirky’s filter failure explanation is that the idea of filter failure insinuates that there is only one way,  (such as checking a few boxes and updating your sorting system) to fix the spam problem. But Shirky himself says no one solution will fix any information overload problem, including spam. If by overload Shirky means that Internet and media technology is forever changing and becoming more advanced, thereby forcing its users to have to adapt to it, then I completely agree. There will never be one solution, or filter, that will outperform any technology as it advances over time. Examining both of these arguments led me to the conclusion that the real issue here is that Internet technology has society spoiled. We often assume that technology is able to perfectly fit every want and need that we have, like a genie granting social media/technology wishes. 

However, this cannot be a problem for society, because everyone’s wants and needs when it comes to this technology are different.

Take for instance, Twitter. The article by City Paper, poses the question of whether or not Twitter will survive the times. Support for twitter says that it will, primarily because there is no “pre-defined way” to use Twitter. Millions of people use twitter in a million ways: some for business, to quickly connect with friends, or to get news and gossip short, sweet, and to the point. I could actually see how Twitter in itself could be considered overload. How could the developer expect one person to be able to decipher and comprehend hundreds of different and ideas from different people, changing by the second, all on one page? The idea may seem overwhelming, but regular Twitter users would probably say that its not at all as bad as it sounds. Advertisers might say neither does spam mail.

For twitter, to manage what one sees on their timeline, one must simply choose the people they follow wisely. Some mobile applications for Twitter even give the ability to “mute” certain users from your timeline briefly, if they aren’t discussing something of your interest. This works for now, but if Twitter is expected to stay around, the next thing a user might want is to be able to box their followers into groups, where certain followers (like parents and professors) are blocked from viewing certain tweets (like what college students do on the weekends). Facebook already claims to have this capability, but I forsee that eventually it will come to Twitter.  When this time comes, its not that a filter would have failed, because the muting option wasn’t designed for this purpose. And it’s not that this will be a problem for society, because certain users probably won’t be concerned about offending their followers or exposing themselves. This is a personal problem, created by the fact that one will expect technology to meet their needs out of the blue. The growth of Internet technology is truly amazing, but it is far from perfect, and it is doubtful that consumers will ever be satisfied. This is why developers work so hard to push out new technology so fast. Somewhere in the world, someone always thinks they need an updated version of the current.  

If you believe that the presentation of new technology in this regard then, is overload, then by all means, feel free to stop using it, or at least actively stop consuming so much of it. Because technology is only going to get better, or in the case that you consider yourself overloaded, worse, over time, and society is going to continue to use it. And that is the fault of neither information overload or filter failure.

To learn more about personal overconsumption vs. information overload, see: 

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/11/information-overload-overconsumption-diet.html

Image source:

 http://rsuniversity.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/the-social-media-genie-and-five-core-principles/