According to Clay Shirky, my filter is failing. Let me explain: as a relatively well-off (in global terms, anyway), 21st century guy, I, like everyone else who fits that bill, is surfing daily on a tidal wave of emails, tweets, news stories, RSS feeds, blogs, YouTube videos, instant messages, text messages and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s an information overflow. And I’m not just surfing – sometimes it feels like “drowning” is the more accurate verb. Have you ever tried taking a sip from a gushing fire hydrant – only to get blasted in the face by the jet stream? You get the picture.
But if one were to bring up this observation with Clay Shirky, the prolific and consistently surprising web and social media guru, he’d tell you that you don’t, in fact, have an information overload problem. You have a filter failure.
According to Shirky, one of the things the internet is best at is giving us a window to more raw information about the world than we’ve ever had before. More than we know what to do with. He’d agree, I think, that if one were to graph the amount of data that flows onto our desks each day, the line would start hockey-sticking skyward with the arrival of the personal web browser. But, he says, we’ve had more data than we can digest since the age of the printing press. There came a time, long ago, when more books were published than a single person could read in a lifetime: the dawn of information overload. So don’t blame the enabler, says Shirky. The internet just allows us to access more of this information faster and easier. His suggestion? Develop a better data filter for determining what kind of information you really need, and when you need it.
Fair enough – but I have a feeling that there’s even more to the story. Say I follow Shirky’s advice and I build a better filter: cut out all but the most necessary magazine subscriptions, sign up for only the RSS feeds that really keep me informed about the things I care about, open my email at only pre-planned times. Filter or not, I think I’d still be feeling overwhelmed – on a visceral level – by the growing heap of things that vie for my attention. After all, won’t the density of what gets squeezed through that filter increase right along with innovations in web technology? And what about when the developing world and a growing population begin creating content at the pace of the global North? And what about the stiffer work expectations for employees in down economies – where hanging on to your job means cranking up productivity, and more emails, more trends to track, more data…
I’d like to add to Shirky’s observation and suggest that maybe “filter failure” is what our culture is experiencing currently, at a macro-scale. The overwhelming cultural message (in the West at least) is: “Be more and do more. And get moving!” We don’t really have a filter, which in one definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “something that has the effect of…holding back elements.” A filter, in other words, is something that says: “That’s enough.”
Of course, the analogy doesn’t quite work perfectly because there’s usually no connection between the filter and the constellation of things to be filtered. But if the analogy to culture is any good, there’s also a hugely important feedback loop baked into the system: if our cultural filter won’t say “enough”, our economy – the thing that generates a large amount of our information flood – will have no reason to arrive at a comfy “steady state.” It’ll keep growing bigger and moving faster. Just like that monster in the shape of an email inbox.
Note from Scott: What do you think of this analogy? Is it accurate? More importantly, is it helpful? I’m thinking it might be time to identify the kinds of cultural changes we might make for sustainability – that matter at least as much as the economic and technological ones. Critique away!
No related posts.
This post was written by Scott Gast
Scott walks, bikes, reads, and lives in rural western Massachusetts. His day jobs have included stints at YES! Magazine, the City of Chicago's Waste to Profit Network, and The Nature Conservancy. He is a graduate of the Environmental Science program at Allegheny College, and Special Projects Assistant at Orion Magazine.
Scott has written 16 posts on Post Growth Institute. Contact Scott
{ 3 comments }
Scott, I like the analogy. Maybe not perfect, but very useful. Clearly the people who are really walking the walk, staying off the hamster-wheel of “more”, are being very selective about what activities, ideas and goals get onto their radar screen.
And by the way, I felt a great deal of empathy reading about your information overload. Two hours minimum for me every day getting through my in-box, most of it related to our culture of growth.
Dave Gardner
Producing the documentary
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
http://www.growthbusters.com
Interesting connection Scott!
There is absolutely a link between the ‘filter failure’ we experience as individuals [information overload and fighting the losing battle with time management] and the collective cultural ‘filter failure’ in that we don’t have a filter which tells us ‘that’s enough’.
We find it difficult to individually and collectively filter the constant ‘noise’ that prevents stillness and deeper reflection/thought on the important questions – say, for example, why we are systematically degrading planetary life support systems as if we believe this is normal!
But what was on the front page of your local paper and what was lead story on the evening news? Not the big ideas, the long term thinking, the connection between what is going on around us.
Here’s another link to those of you concerned with filter management:
http://www.changethis.com/61.03.ManageAttention
Some time back*, I saw a quote that surprised me twice.
First for the quote:
“Don’t just do something– sit there!”
Second for the source:
Daniel Berrigan, activist extraordinaire
http://j.mp/9Y0HmW
Six years later, as I started to “follow” him,
when only a few people did, I got involved in what started as a movement of a few hundred, and later became a movement of tens of millions– the movement to reverse the cold war nuclear rivalry. How telling that it was this man who would help transform history. And how interesting that the majority of the others involved in early 1977 in this movement were Quakers– whose form of worship is based around listening to silence.
* OK, 39 years ago
{ 2 trackbacks }