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Solving media overload takes a single word
As the digital vanguard goes, the rest of the online users eventually follow. Consider this example: noted designer Khoi Vinh wrote a few days ago...
I have access to Netflix, DVDs and torrents for everything I could ever want to watch and yet no time to watch them. #torture
If you're not there, you probably will be soon: infinite bitstreams beckoning from every corner of life and work. The question, then, is what sources will you not dive into? Or to put it in more practical terms...
• Work: You have plenty of ways of tracking the 1,000 things you need to get done. But which are the three most important tasks for today?
• Music: You can listen to any song (via Youtube), any genre (via Pandora), any radio station (via its online stream), and any music you've ever bought (via iTunes). But which is right music for this moment?
• Movies: You could easily have a to-watch list spanning Roku, DVDs, iPad, TiVo, Boxee, and so on... but which one do you want to try to watch this week?
• Books: You can download any book you want, to join the 100 others you have on the kindle/iPad/iPhone you have now. But which one should you read now? Will it keep your interest for more than a page?
Will anything keep our interest for more than a page, a kilobyte, a second? The only way to answer "yes" is to say "no" to the thousand other available options.
P.S. #1: The New York Times today reports that overuse of digital devices may lead to brain fatigue. In other words, it's important to say "no" to everything digital once in awhile. (This was the key message of Bit Literacy and its mantra of "let the bits go.")
P.S. #2: One might consider "water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink" as an analogy for information overload. But keep in mind that this flood of information isn't really a problem, comparatively. A real problem, from a real flood, is what's going on in Pakistan. See a list of organizations helping with relief, Big Picture photos from the flood zone, ontheground.pk displaying messages support for flood victims.... and here's a map showing how big, really, the flood area is.
Actually this problem is going to grow exponentially worse as technology grows at an exponential rate.
There were roughly 5 exabytes of online data in 2002 and in 2009 281 Exabytes of Online Data That's a growth rate of 56 times over seven years. So its simply too much data to filter through. This is why Microsoft's research team is incorporating personal search indexes into Bing.com and Im pretty sure that Google is already doing this to one degree or another but that is still not a real solution because a search engine is just what a search engine was intended to do which was provide a user with the ability to simply search and find something of interest.
The reality however is that what users want, is for the data to be automatically recommended based on the context that they are in and require the user to only search when they have not looked for specific data previously The primary issue involving around searching is that its not continuously finding the information for the user.
The only real solution is to build smarter recommendation engines, sensors, and algorithms that deal with provide users with the content that they are interested in at the specific context that they are located in without requiring effort to continuously search for what they are interested in in that particular moment.
The following articles discuss this problem as well
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_coming_data_explosion.php
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_schmidt_people_arent_ready_for_the_tech.php
Yes. Yes. Yes.
This is a great topic. I have been using this mantra for the past three years: The production of content is greater than the capacity to consume. The balance is out of whack and getting worse, IMHO.
My advice is for designers to turn attention to the issues that this disparity will create. For instance, in a world saturated with infojunk, quality and relevance will matter more and more.
I have to force myself to set limits due to the overwhelming amount of choice out there -- I only shop a handful of stores, mostly local; I stick to a grocery list and usually go for the same brands; for movies/most television shows, only Netflix (no cable/satelllite bills!); etc. Also, "delete" is my favorite online activity. With two toddlers, a full-time job and a traveling spouse, the world would quickly overwhelm me if I opened the gates.
It's shocking how seduced we are into believing, "But what if I don't read/watch/listen to this, and ___?" without wondering what happens if we miss out on real life instead? Bummer.
Pedant note: Coleridge's line from Rime of the Ancient Mariner went "Water, water everywhere / Nor any drop to drink" but you could go the lifetime of an albatross without hearing it quoted the correct but archaic way.