Too Much Information!

“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Except that now, in the age of the Internet and the limitless access to information that it provides, the “number of things” that the world is so full of seems a tad overwhelming.

I am a little interested in a whole bunch of things. I took one of those personality /career tests that compared me to a little puppy dog, sticking my nose in lots of places, and then scampering off to find something new. I couldn’t deny it—I find many things fascinating. I probably have a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which is actually a misnomer, since I don’t have a deficit of attention—I have loads of it, I just can’t keep it focused on one thing at a time. Too boring. I am a born multi-tasker. The only problem with that is that my attention keeps getting drawn to something new every few seconds.

Hey, look—there’s a squirrel!

Anyway, I was the kid who, back in the day, read the encyclopedias that Mom bought down at the grocery store from cover to cover. They were filled with interesting information, and coupled with my insatiable desire to read, they were perfect for me. Who wouldn’t want to know everything about Ben Franklin, franking privileges, and Anne Frank, all in the same half hour?

It also explains why I love newspapers so much. In one sitting, I can read the day’s news, some nifty op-ed columns, and a book or movie review. Breakfast for me is a large cup of coffee and large helping of information, please. I used to read cereal boxes, for goodness sake! Remember the news from Checkerboard Square?

But my unending desire to read and find out new and interesting stuff has met its Waterloo in the Internet. Its stores of information—factual and otherwise—are infinite, and therein lies the rub. The internet is like those encyclopedias I was so fond of, times a billion. There’s no “Z”! I could never get to the end of the information available on the web. It is simply not possible.

And for someone like me, who likes to sniff, sniff, sniff, and then dig, dig, dig, like a little puppy, there are just too many interesting tangents for me to explore, making it impossible to get from A to B in any kind of linear fashion. My little piles of links are stacked up in the bottom of my toolbar, looking up at me and wondering what I am going to do with them. Sorry, I can’t bookmark you all, little links. Some of you are just going to have to go back into the ether. Now, what was I looking for again?

I know I am not alone in this. I have suspicions that there are lots of us not just surfing the Web, but drowning in its riptides of data and fascinating facts. It’s hard to keep your eyes on the prize when there are so many other shiny things to look at along the way.

So, with apologies to R.L.S., I’d like to update his verse:

The Web is so filled with a number of sites, I can’t see them all—try as I might.

It’s so fast and vast in what it can show, that it’s swamped my poor brain with its raw data flow.

While access to info should make me feel royal, to the printed word I shall always be loyal.