
Drowning in a Sea of Information - cjdarnault
https://digitalculturist.com/drowning-in-a-sea-of-information-563a3160efbb
======
sosuke
I think that if there were a clear outline at the beginning of articles,
essays or blog posts like this I might waste less time trying to skim them for
the point. I didn't read nearly enough of it to find the author's point but
personally I've started skipping over content that doesn't present clear goals
up front. If I want suspense, mystery and surprise endings I read fiction.

I would think that "Deep Reading" isn't something you can't do today that you
could do yesterday but something that has to be prioritized. I never could
find time for fiction in my life today like I could chew through books as a
kid. I have to divide my attention now because I have taken on
responsibilities outside myself. I simply cannot get lost in a book unless
I've planned to get lost in a book that day.

I'm writing awfully different than usual today. Oh look my phone is blinking.

~~~
rmelly
I would love to see a writing format with something like the following
structure: 1) A TLDR of Twitter length 2) A paraphrase of the key concepts and
point argued in the article 3) The actual full-length article

This way you could ramp up at each stage and decide if it's valuable to keep
reading.

~~~
Swizec
> 1) A TLDR of Twitter length 2) A paraphrase of the key concepts and point
> argued in the article 3) The actual full-length article

Otherwise known as "real journalism". You know, that thing we collectively
decided we don't want to pay for.

You just described the "lead, intro graf, story" structure that newspapers
have been using for decades if not centuries.

~~~
mbrock
Lots of prestigious journalism fails at this, or has different goals. Most
magazine articles don't start with a concise thesis statement, instead they
try to hook the reader with something like "As I made my way up the stairs in
the convention center, a stocky man with pale blonde hair stopped to ask me
for directions to the men's room." and keeps going with this kind of enticing
pseudo-fictional storytelling.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Lots of prestigious journalism fails at this, or has different goals._

The answer is exactly that "or" of yours. Informing the reader in an efficient
and useful way is a very distant, low-priority goal, and we're all aware of
that and yet still somehow pretend journalism is about informing people. It's
not anymore.

------
welanes
One of the best articles I've read on this topic is here:
[https://next.ft.com/content/009050e4-75ea-11e2-9891-00144fea...](https://next.ft.com/content/009050e4-75ea-11e2-9891-00144feabdc0)

 _" we overvalue new writing, almost absurdly so, and we undervalue older
writing. I feel this market failure keenly each day when I recommend a fine
piece of writing that deserves to be read for years to come and yet will have
at most two days in the sun._

 _You never hear anybody say, “I’m not going to listen to that record because
it was released last year,” or, “I’m not going to watch that film because it
came out last month.” Why are we so much less interested in journalism that’s
a month or a year old? "_

\------

Hacker sidenote: surely there's a market for an app that combines your read-
later lists, a gentle timer like that in the headspace meditation app, and
duolingo-like gamification.

Someone ought to build it.

~~~
VLM
Generally I don't watch the nightly network news. Experimentally I've tuned
in. It lives in a parallel universe, very weakly connected to reality. One has
to invest many hours in its fictional narrative to make any sense of it, much
like you don't tune into episode 50 of a pop culture TV show and understand
any of it. You're no better educated given one episode of the nightly news
than you are when given one episode of "breaking bad".

In that way one isolated pop culture clickbait artifact from a year or decade
ago is useless. I need a package of ten, maybe a hundred hours worth of
content to make any sense of the pop culture references and the self
references.

From the front page of Reuters right now, clickbait era journalism that makes
no sense without extensive background:

Texas 'affluenza' mom has curfew eased

Fiat Chrysler to investigate crash that killed 'Star Trek' actor

Wall St. rally holds steady as Brexit chances weaken

Myanmar's Suu Kyi reiterates stance on not using term 'Rohingya'

VLMs rule, clickbait expands until the content is indistinguishable from
noise, without extensive experience and training.

~~~
tunap
If you think that's bad, _do not_ read USA Today. It reads like the target
audience is the 5th grader bracket... only more naive & gullible.

------
Bartweiss
First, I would note that this is one of the better pieces about attention
problems and information overload. Far, far better than a work like _Shallow_
, which weighs down a handful of actual insights with a vast collection of
grumpy "good old days" rhetoric.

Having said that, I think the piece misses one key motivation for "TLDR
culture": _most online content is terrible._ It is very bad and often non-
obviously bad. If one starts reading carefully from the beginning, one will
often (usually?) waste several minutes discovering that the article is not
going anywhere good; that it explains a well-known idea, or is directionless,
or is simply inaccurate. Skimming and skipping around are ways to avoid crappy
content, and abandoning an article after reading a small portion is often a
symptom of it.

I have not lost the ability to sit and read deeply. I may do it less than I
would like, but that is a matter of time apportionment rather than capacity.
But when I do commit that time, I will continue to do it with reputable,
known-quality works instead of the average internet thinkpiece.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I totally agree. I've noticed this in my own reading pattern - when I'm linked
to an on-line article, I first skim it very fast to identify _if there 's even
anything worth reading in it_, and if I determine that there might be, I go
back to beginning and start reading.

It's a pattern born from experience - I've wasted way too much time reading
through articles only to discover half-way that they could (and _should_ ) be
summarized in a Tweet.

~~~
Bartweiss
I first noticed that when I realized that I _wasn 't_ doing it with familiar
authors. If Bruce Schneier posts something, I'll dive right in without
skimming, but if "random Medium user" posts something it gets a TL;DR
treatment first.

------
henrik_w
I can recommend "Deep Work" by Cal Newport. Made me realize how distracted I
am, and how much can be gained by focusing on "deep" work. A quick read, but
describes the problem and coping-strategies well.

~~~
ausjke
Got that book a month back but had no time to deep read it yet due to various
distractions every day. It appears to be a great book.

~~~
swah
I have profited from reading Derek Sivers' notes about some book, when
available, to get a feel about what is inside and if its worth the time.

The one you guys are talking about:
[https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork](https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork)

Meta: something I found interesting about Derek is that he welcomes mail from
anyone: "Please email me at [...] for any reason. I reply to all, and much
prefer email over social networks. "

------
rubidium
I found this section from Laudato Si pretty striking and relevant to the
authors experience:

"47\. Furthermore, when media and the digital world become omnipresent, their
influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply
and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the
risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information
overload.

Efforts need to be made to help these media become sources of new cultural
progress for humanity and not a threat to our deepest riches. True wisdom, as
the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between
persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads
to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with
others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type
of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate
relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion
which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with
nature.

Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and
affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the
pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal
experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the
exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic
dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation,
can also arise."

source:
[http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docume...](http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-
francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html)

------
morinted
This is my favorite point in this article:

 _In addition, the rate at which information is created and shared, dictates
the rate at which it is consumed. This encourages a shallow culture that
skims, snips, and divides content into small “digestible” pieces that lack
depth, all while utilizing technology as a creative crutch to create said
content._

I think it well-illustrates this hole we've dug for ourselves and makes it
clear that it's pretty hard to get out of. Personally, I'm not really sure how
to increase my attention span. I think a big part might be allowing my "queue"
of emails and phone notifications to grow and only check my phone at
designated periods in the day, e.g. 30 minutes after waking, after the stand
up meeting, at noon, at a coffee break at 3 p.m., after getting home, after
dinner.

That way, at least, it's checking the phone maybe ten times a day, as opposed
to 80 or more. I wonder if there are apps that can suppress notifications
(using Android administrator API?) until specific time periods.

~~~
groby_b
"Just" turn off the ringer and put it in a drawer. And close that open e-mail
tab in your browser. (If you try it, you'll likely find that it's a rather
hard thing to do)

As it turns out, none of the notifications (and very few of the e-mails) are
actually relevant to most of our daily lives.

------
goodmachine
Well, we're drowning in a sea of nearly identical articles about information
overload, at least.

It's time we had some novel contributions to the genre: this is not one.

~~~
stephengillie
Fear of missing out? Dread of constant repetition.

------
karpodiem
Recently quit twitter other than to @ at people directly. Was never a heavy
user a Facebook, but came to conclusion that checking it once a day was
sufficient. No more RSS - just typing in HN, The Register, and TheVerge a few
times a week to catch up. I listen to music instead of podcasts; Apple's Beats
1 station and some local jazz/classical stations.

This has worked wonders for my latent anxiety. I finally feel free.

I very much recommend it, if you feel overwhelmed.

~~~
overcast
I took it a step further, and just closed the majority of my social network
accounts. The main culprit being Facebook. I also put away the phone on the
charger before bed, and don't pick up until after my day has started. Now I
read more books, go on long hikes, and have more time for my personal
projects.

------
okreallywtf
If the nunit test adapter for visual studio ran just a little bit slower (than
it already is at < v3.0) I would get through much more of the HN articles than
I currently do.

To be serious, I definitely identified with some of the article, but it made
me feel better because I'm not nearly as bad these days about massive backlogs
and todos. I still accumulate un-read articles and ideas, but I'm better at
mentally and emotionally shoving them in a virtual closet and forgetting about
them.

I come up with ideas for short stories occasionally but I rarely sit down and
try to write them, its hard to make time between the myriad of other things
I'm interested in. This used to bother me, and the act of coming up with a
story idea almost created a minute amount of stress when I didn't try to take
it anywhere. I eventually came to accept it really doesn't matter if I follow
through or not, if I accept early on what I really want to get out of it. The
truth is the process of coming up with ideas and internally working through
them is where I get most of the benefit, not in the process of having-done
them. With this understanding, I realize I do get something out of the many
ideas I have regardless of whether I follow them through, so I focus more on
enjoying the internal problem solving/story exploring aspect and only try to
follow through when I enjoy it, not to satisfy some need to accomplish things
and be productive.

I'm not sure if thats a helpful concept to anyone else, but I've seen how
other people get bogged down in unfinished projects, posts, stories etc and I
saw myself going down that path as well. It ends up being very cathartic to
physically box up a physical project, or delete a whole folder of bookmarks
and just accept that whatever you absorbed was worth it and thats that.

------
kharms
I find it helpful to externalize my self-control, and one of my favorite tools
for that is the ironically named OSX app "SelfControl." Essentially, the app
modifies your host file to block certain domains for X amount of time.

All of my regular distractions are in the block list, and if/when I get
frustrated with myself, I turn the app on and voila - 12 hours of
inaccessibility. This limits my infotainment to an hour at day at most.

(Of course, there is always the phone, but I find it easier to not get lost in
it. There's also an app called "forest" which gameifies not opening the phone,
which I turn on if I know the meeting I'm going into is dull.)

------
graeme
Posting as this may be of use to others. The article led to me reorganizing my
phone.

The author recommends something called Infomagical, which is a five part
podcast aimed at reducing digital distraction.

Haven't tried that yet, so I can't comment. But day two is phone
reorganization. You can see a preview of the process here (not my site):

[http://www.kennethbills.net/blog/infomagical](http://www.kennethbills.net/blog/infomagical)

Basically, you move all your apps to folders, move them off the home screen,
and then open them with spotlight (I think Ok Google would be the android
equivalent?)

I've tried a few different distraction reduction methods, and none stuck. But
this one appealed to me because that's actually _exactly_ how I use my
computer. And it works well. I just never thought to apply it to my phone.

So I:

    
    
      1. Moved all apps to folders, on the second page
      2. Identified the four apps with the highest signal to noise. For me, that was whatsapp, messages, google now (I use it logged out), and calendar. Choose whatever you like – the important bit is that none of those have proven compulsive for me
      3. I set my background to a nice nature scene near where I live
      4. I also turned off most notifications, except those for messages and whatapp. None of the other phone notifications were actually important. For things like Slack and Trello, I usually see those on my computer.
    

One guiding principle is that I should _not_ be doing most things on my phone.
I'm significantly more productive, say, answering email on my computer. So I
should mostly do it there. I don't have the kind of work where I _need_ to
respond to anything within 1-2 hours, so this works.

Obviously, I just tried this, so I can't know if it works long run. But it's
what I already do on my computer, so I suspect it will work better than past
attempts. My phone already feels calmer.

Link to infomagical itself:
[http://project.wnyc.org/infomagical/](http://project.wnyc.org/infomagical/)

------
MrQuincle
The fact that a task has been "done" in my team in Trello leads to an
automatic email thanking the people who made it happen.

I think we need to communicate more about the things that have been done. We
only tend to celebrate only the really big things. The challenge is to
appreciate the small things you have done or experienced in a day.

The feeling of fulfillment is a feeling that requires to be taken serious!

------
nxzero
I personally love feeling crushed by the vast surges of information that
surround me, being able to let go of the need to understand it all, or to ride
my hunger for information right down to the very moment before it consumes me.

Basic physics shows there will always a disconnect in the way information
flows and the obsession over controlling all information is in my opinion
physically impossible.

------
Karunamon
Tangential - I wonder what's responsible for that downwards spike in "number
of indexed webpages" graph?

------
SimeVidas
As the editor of a daily digest about the web platform, I can witness that
there are so many new posts, discussions, resources each day, that there is
barely enough time to properly process all that content _if you do nothing
else_ ; I have no idea how web developers cope with this (^_^;).

------
known
If you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper,
you are misinformed.

~~~
crpatino
Therefore if you want to be informed about something, you need to skim through
at least a dozen of different newspapers spread over the political landscape,
so you can have enough pieces of the puzzle to be able to put together in your
mind something that resambles reality. We call this "being informed", and yes,
it takes a lot of time and effort.

The challenge of our age is that there are virtually infinite opportunities to
inform yourself about a legion of topics: Most of those trivial and/or frankly
stupid, and even the worthy ones being too numerous for a single mind to
feasibly grok a majority of them.

TL;DR - Choose wisely and triage like hell.

------
rdiddly
"You got played, son."

The people who profit from your attention have tried like hell to insert
themselves in your life and to make the experience as addictive as possible.
"Surprisingly," this turns out not to be in your best interest.

------
niels_olson
This guy is talking about some very low value information. If social streams
are the central axis of your life, you're doing it wrong. There are more
interesting ideas to be had.

------
yayitswei
The Amazon Rainforest is larger than I thought.

------
miguelrochefort
This is what Xanadu was all about...

