Too Much Information?

October 1999

It's truly amazing how much the Information Age has changed our lives over the last few years. I can't watch more than eight minutes of prime time TV without seeing ads for another "dot-com" company. Cable and satellite TV let viewers hop continents with a click of the remote. There are so many specialized sources of information and entertainment worldwide, if you like 24-hour Mexican women's naked roller-skating racquetball there's a cable TV channel, Usenet group, and a dozen Web sites dedicated to it.

There's a problem to all this electronic media, though. A new study by academics that study such things claims communication technology is the new drug of choice. A growing number of people are now hooked on electronic information sources, whether it's surfing the 'Net for hours or needing to know what's on all 814 channels on the satellite TV service. My wife, for example, is a Weather Channel junkie. When the cable goes out, I have to draw contour maps on our kids' Etch-a-Sketch to calm her down.

Another example: a friend of mine nearly lives on the Internet, to the point of actually ordering pizza online. He turns on his computer, dials up his Internet connection, downloads the menu from the local pizza franchise, places the order online, waits for the delivery, and tips the driver. The restaurant is across the street from his house.

Now that I think about it, media infatuation isn't really a new thing. Anyone who began their teen years with the dawn of MTV remembers being glued to the tube for hours waiting for that stupid astronaut logo and seeing what group would be on next. Sure, most of the videos stunk, that wasn't the point! The media was new. Once the novelty wore off, however, we figured out MTV wasn't going anywhere and thankfully got on with our lives. (Now that I think about it, all that early exposure to MTV would explain a lot about what's wrong with me now. I'd better call my lawyer.)

The same holds true today with Warp Nine data connections and up-to-the-nanosecond talking head updates. It doesn't matter what data trough we drink from, information can't help our lives if we don't live our lives in the first place. Too much of anything is bad, be it food, sunlight, or Britney Spears tribute Web sites (some things are obviously worse than others). Try as you might, you will never be able to visit every Star Wars fan URL, or have a legitimate reason to watch the Staring Contest Championships Channel.

So if your friend has been online long enough to wear groves in his desktop with the mouse, tell him to give the modem a rest. If your spouse is up at 3AM to catch the Spanish rebroadcast of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on channel 546, teach her to program the VCR. When we get on our high-speed cable-ready surfboard and ride the information waves, it's important to keep from being drawn into the undertow.

LEGAL STUFF: All content copyright © 1996-2006 Daniel O'Leary. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication, publication, or distribution.

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He has previously written online editorials to NJ-shout.com (RIP), Great Society.org, and Songsource.com, among others. He has also been featured in ShoreGuide and AbsoluteWrite.com.

Dan is a current member of the NetWits humorist's collective.

Since his early twenties, Dan's writings have also been prominently featured on the refrigerator in his parents' home. "Sure, they make no sense," Mrs. O'Leary comments, "but we're proud of him -- no matter what everyone else says."