The problem is information overload.
Divide the ambiant audience by the number of information outlets and you get a co-efficient that indicates the degree of saturation in a media environment.
If you have 100 million twitter users, for example, you divide the 100 million users by 100 million outputs and you get a saturation co-efficient of 100%.
That's the operative definition of fatal information overload.
Yes, fatal. If you take a laboratory rat and you expose it to 24/7 data saturation (bright lights, high decibel sound, food odors, cat smells, etc) the rat simply dies because it can't function in that wash of sensory stimulation. It stops eating. It stops drinking. Then it stops breathing.
What it means in practical terms is that, as you approach a 100% saturation level, you reach a point at which no one hears anyone else.
By analogy, if you have 100 people in a room and you give them each a different page from Shakespeare to read aloud, what you get is total cacophony in which you can only hear the people who are closest to you, but you can't really understand any one person.
This is our present situation. Our civilization is dying from information overload, and we're all contributing to the process.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Boomer Bob
Heidi Banerjee
Keka
Christie's Corner
Jim Stancil
Rebecca Morean
Salon.com
Comments
humans not only like to talk, they DO like to listen. it's what they're actually listening to, thats important. and right now, kids are so into being kids and other kids and things the reinforce their kidness, I think this is a monster the corporatists haven't yet considered...this breed of child adult. an onanistic perpetual teenager who will soon dominate the world. AND not make nearly enough babies. or cooperate. they're gonna have to make some powerful soma. :)
it's good to see you.
As usual, we are on the same page on this.
There's a hell of a lot of research out there which indicates that even if you can get the attention of those who's opinions you'd hope to change, more facts only make them cling to their positions more firmly. There's good reason for that and I'd also say @Foolish Monkey, that what most people do isn't "listening". It's filtering information to suit their predispositions, grabbing onto fragments and composing their world view as a retort, a fortress (whether the media they're fed or built from their internal resources).
There's very, very little confluence of contradictory perceptions into logically considered courses of action, far less individual perception of being blind to one's own prejudices. Maybe mine is that most people have no motivation to attempt to bridge that gulf and perhaps too little in the way of intellect to succeed. Myself? I'm going to try and do more things that create something good because reacting to what isn't, does not seem to be an effective route to change.
R (If only for the last time ;)
On the issue of infantilization of children... SOME of us view our job as a parent to be "raising adults capable of functioning in society" and go about the business of turning children into adults rather than keeping them perpetually children. I'm not the "helicopter parent" type - I don't hover over my children. I teach them to handle money, make decisions and take responsibility. If they get a little messy in the process... well... LIFE can sometimes be messy and it is better for both them and society if they learn THAT particular lesson in the relative safety of my sight than that I turn them loose with no idea how to cope when Life gets messy.
.........(¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯)
☼•*¨`*•.¸.(ˆ◡ˆ).¸.•*
............... *•.¸.•* ♥⋆★•❥ Peace and ♥ L☼√Ξ ☼ ♥
⋆───★•❥Have a Reflective Day ☼ .¸¸.•*`*•.♥ (ツ)