Blog Post #6: Clay Sharky, Information Overload vs. Filter Failure

In the presentation by Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City in September 2008, “It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure“, Sharky makes the case that –despite the average person’s perception that the “information overload” he is experiencing is a new phenomenon, human society has been dealing with this overwhelming feeling since the invention of the printing press and movable type which allowed for the mass production of books.  It’s a good point.  With everything that has come along in the culture that has the word “mass” tacked on the front of it (e.g., mass communication, mass production, mass destruction, mass hysteria), there is a sense of a lack of control. Of things being unstoppable. Of a powerlessness of the individual.  The idea of “Information Overload” that Sharky talks about, especially with respect to the Internet, leaves many people with a feeling that things are moving at the speed of light and there is no way to keep up.  Sharky says that it isn’t really the idea of increasing information that is new, it’s just that in the Internet Age, the systems and strategies for dealing with filtering out information are something that we don’t have a handle on.

The feeling that people have, which makes them think that everything was once under control, but that they are now faced with an unmanageable and mushrooming amount of new information, could be seen as an example of innumeracy.  Innumeracy is a concept and term that describes “a person’s inability to make sense of the numbers that run their lives”. Innumeracy is most often used to describe mistakes in perception and understanding due to mathematical illeteracy.  According to Sharky, even when the number of spam e-mails a person gets increases by only around 25%, they will perceive this increase as more than a doubling of spam emails.

Another example of information overload and faulty filtering leading to false perceptions about culture and society, is the way that many people believe that the modern world is a much more violent and uncivilized place than it used to be.  This is brought about by the fact that the news stories that lead the evening TV news broadcasts and that pop up on the front page of your browser when you turn your computer on are the most ghastly, sensational, frightening stories about murders and kidnappings and shootings and depravity.  I guess we should all just be embarrassed that we are so voyeuristic and curious to know about the horrors that others go through.  The reality is that stories like: “Girl Scout makes doing good deeds a lifelong pursuit” are not going to sell a ton of pop-up ads online. (i.e. Bad news sells).

Scientist Reijo Savolainer of the University of Tampere in Finland did a study on how people deal with Information Overload.  According to Savolainer, there can be both real and perceived information overload, and people deal with this in one of two ways: by filtering and/or withdrawing.  The filtering –as he describes it – involves directly weeding out useless information once it is received, and the withdrawing involves protecting ones self from useless information in the first place, by limiting the number of information sources one receives.  I think this backs up what Sharky was talking about.  He seems to be telling us to get over ourselves and just get used to “information overload”, since it is – as he puts it – “the water we swim in”.  Since we will never be able to keep up with the information, we need to get better at “handling” it.  And we shouldn’t let it stress us out.

Blog Post #5: Jonathan Zittrain (TED 2009)

In Jonathan Zittrain’s presentation “The Web as random acts of kindness“, he talks about how the World Wide Web has become a vehicle for people to remain humanized and connected, in a world where outside forces may seemingly be drawing people inwards and forcing them to become isolated from one another.

Zittrain cites three main examples of this surprising, yet encouraging, phenomenon: the Internet itself, Wikipedia and the Craig’s List Ride Share Board.  The basic idea behind all of these, starting with the Internet, is that people with information, expertise, goods and services, or personal opinions to share will spend a lot of time and effort to share it, at all costs, even and especially when they are not getting paid for their efforts.  A second concept that Zittrain talks about is how people are basically trusting of others and they do like to have faith in the good intentions of people they don’t even know.

Why do people do this?  I typed into Google: “the psychology of knowledge sharing on the web“, and I got 272,000 results. People are wondering about this. There are papers being written about it psychology courses being taught at institutes of higher learning, and presentations, like Zittrain’s, at  Internet and media related conferences.

Without going deeply into the nature of human psychology, there are a couple of basic reasons why people like to share information, namely ego and altruism.  People are curious by nature and tend to like solving puzzles and challenges; when they solve something tricky in a cool way, they like to let people know that they did it and how they did it.  What better way to let people know about something awesome and clever you did than by posting it on the Web, where ANYONE in the world with Internet access can look at it, study it, copy it, and comment on it ad infinitum?  It’s got to be an ego boost when you can google yourself and find tons of sites where your brilliant ideas are being referenced and commented on.

And then there are people on the receiving end of the information who are not contributors, and they are spending a lot of time online, taking real advantage of the information that other people are providing.   The users accessing this information are getting a lot out of the Internet and they are trusting in the honesty and integrity of the providers of the information that they are downloading, using and sharing.

I recently installed digital video editing software on my home computer, and as a relatively new user, I often have “urgent” questions that come up at odd times, when I don’t want to bug my friends or professors.  So I turn to Google, and just type in “how do I blah blah blah with FCP7?” and I always get tons of results, with thorough explanations and screen shots and back and forth conversations, often at a website called “CreativeCOW.net” which started in April of 2001 as an offshoot of the “Media 100 Worldwide Users Group” in 1994 in the San Francisco Bay area.  This website has sponsors and staff and that sort of thing, so I’m guessing (although I don’t quite know how this works) that many of their contributors have figured out how to make money for putting in their time and effort. Creative Cow can’t be paying every contributor though, and there are many other sites on the Web where software users are just sharing information for fun(?) or whatever reason.  I don’t get it, but I am always grateful.

As far as altruism goes, people like to be generous and share with others.  I have read that Americans are the most generous people in the world, and the fact that they are using the Web as an outlet for this is not surprising.  There are websites like “Random Acts of Kindness” which help online users connect with other people over the Internet to share thoughtful messages and, as they put it, “to make the internet a better place”.  The opportunities for connecting and for charity on the Web are endless.  You can go to “Cell Phones For Soldiers” and help the troops by donating your cell phone. And you can even find out how to donate clothes to tsunami victims.  These are just a few of the examples of charity on the web and they are the kinds of things that people used to do (and still do) through their church groups and community organizations. Now – especially when people are not joining organized religion as much as they used to – they can stay connected and help their fellow humans from the comfort of their own homes, with a click of a mouse.

People are also sharing knowledge about current events and major news stories, despite limits that their government might be putting on free speech.  An example of this is the recent elections in Iran when the government there may have tried to shut down the use of Twitter to report protests there. Online readers are eager to hear about what’s really going on. People are connecting all over the world.

There may be hope for people yet!