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In a Haze of Information
Aired November 8 and 9, 1997
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This is Internet On The Air. I'm Todd Mundt. With the nation getting
wired...the medium is still the message. Details in a moment.
Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of Michigan
School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation.
Back in the 1960s, Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan told the world that "the
medium is the message", referring to the close connection between technology and
communication. McLuhan also wrote that society had extended its "social nervous
system" in a "global embrace", greatly diminishing the effects of both
space and time.
Since McLuhan wrote those words, the total amount of information produced by humans has
doubled...and the Internet promises to accelerate that trend. But is this a good thing?
A recent international survey of managers found that one in four admitted to suffering
poor health because of "information overload". Their symptoms included frayed
nerves, shorter attention spans and mental confusion. The condition has been nicknamed
"data smog". Nearly half the managers predicted that the Internet will play a
role in making "data smog" worse over the next two years.
There are high- and low-tech solutions to clear the air. E-mail filters, digital
libraries, and recommender systems, which compile individual preferences for new materials
while weeding out the rest, may help those with a technological bent. Low-tech
alternatives may be as simple as meditation, reading, and simply unplugging the machine
for a while. Today's social theorists suggest there may be wisdom in striving for a better
balance between the supply and demand for new information...and in using human
intelligence to know when "enough is enough"!
To explore ways to clean up data smog, visit our Web site at www.iota.org. For Internet On
The Air, I'm Todd Mundt.
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Related Links
The legacy of Marshall McLuhan is alive and well on the
Web:
- One place to begin learning more about Marshall Mcluhan is this brief biography.
- The biography is one of many resources available on the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology site
at the University of Toronto. Other resources include continuing
education programs, images and sounds and a Web zine.
- There is also a link to the McLuhan Program International, a global
network of people studying the impact of technology on arts and cultures.
- Some people might consider this information overload, but if you are really into
Marshall McLuhan you might want to visit VideoMcLuhan, a commercial site that sells a
package of six 40-50 minute tapes of famous McLuhan interviews, strung together with
commentary from Tom Wolfe.
- Find links
to articles about Marshall McLuhan on this New York Times page.
To begin using the Web to learn more about information overload
and ways to cope:
- Check out reviews of Data Smog and similar books, by visiting the Data
Smog entry at Amazon.com. If your browser does not go directly to the Data Smog
page, search by keywords "Data Smog."
- The Reuter's Magazine story Information Overload Causes Stress,
from which the survey data used in this story was taken, can be found here.
- Read this Wired article on Firefly
to learn about the rise and fall of one of the Web's first collaborative filtering
communities. After rating a series of CDs or movies, Firefly's recommender system
technology would recommend other titles you might want, based on the selections of others
with similar preferences.
- For an example of an e-mail filter, try Infoscan,
which works with Eudora.
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The Interview
There was no interview recorded for this show.
Please direct questions or comments to iota.webmaster@umich.edu.
Last Updated January 26, 2000
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