Can we have too much information?

The Internet is a great source of information, no one can deny it. While once you would have to go to the library or buy special literature to learn more about quantum physics, nowadays you can join one of the hundreds clubs available on the web or simply try Wikipedia /Google is also entering the market with Knol/. There is nothing you can’t learn about, all you need is time on your hands. You have the tools, you have the sources. But can we have too much information?

Did you know that every time you glance at the moon your brain throws something else away? We humans simply can’t comprehend the vastness of information out there. Our brains have limited capacity, they can only store as much memories. When there is not enough room, something needs to go away. Stop and think about it for a second… yes, the simple act of observing an object costs you brain space. So does watching television or having a chat with your mates. Everything you do needs to be recorded so you can play it back later. But we are not like computers, we cannot ‘add’ more space. What we have is what we get. What role does the Internet play in all this madness?

How many blogs do you follow on average? How many people do you have on Twitter? Do you find yourself spending countless hours browsing the web, going through websites? Researchers have found that ours brains are rewiring themselves to deal with how we manage the large amount of information available on the web. When you go to a website, it’s rarely that you read through every single sentence as you would do with a book. Instead, you find your way around by skimming through information, lots and lots of information. Same applies for Twitter, if you are following many people on there, it’s rarely that you read every single twit.

Let’s connect the dots. One, we know ours brains have limited capacity. Two, we throw away old or unused memories to make room for current ones. Three, our brains work somewhat differently as we deal with huge amounts of data on a daily basis, but it’s all in chunks. What do you get? One big mess.

Yes, we can have too much information and many people on the web do. We end up with brains filled with rubbish, things you won’t probably ever use or need and yet we throw away childhood and school memories.

By now you are probably thinking does it all mean we should stop reading blogs and using Twitter or even go to such lengths as to say we should kill the Web? No. I think we should focus our attention on the information we are getting every single day. Why have 10, 000 people on Twitter when you are only interested in probably 1% of them, which is still a high number. Why read all those stupid blogs you’ve meant to remove for ages and yet you spend hours every week to read the headings? Why bother to find what you need on that website when you could as easily try another Google query and get to what you want faster? Why watch television when you could find your way to news you are only interested in and have some real value in your work or daily life? I guess the list is endless, but the main point here is we should learn to filter the information we are allowing our brains to collect.

I, for one, intend to do all of the above and even go a step further. There is only as much data I can store in my brain, why not make the best of it?

There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.