To understand information overload, we have to look at:
(a) the external nature of information;
(b) the internal means of processing that information; and
(c) the tools and practices that we use to help us find our way in the information world.
So far, we’ve briefly examined the first two, and touched on the third.
Now, we turn to the third in more detail: to see how our tools and practices help us in important ways, while at the same time, hindering us in subtle, yet powerful ways.
And that’s a consequence of their evolution and their design:
(a) they’re unable to capture or organize vast swaths of information,
which means they don’t do much in the way of creating peace of mind or reducing anxiety;
(b) what they do capture, they isolate into silos, or bury in walls of text – they fragment or hide information even as they collect it; and
(c) they don’t make information available in the form we need, when we need it – a consequence of the fact that they’re put to uses for which they weren’t intended.
