#information overload

#information overload

Podcasts have devastated my relationship to music. Confirmation of that sad fact came earlier this month in the form of my Spotify "Wrapped," the streaming service's personalized report of what I listened to this year, including a playlist of my top songs. In the past, this annual playlist supplied a loop of sonic pleasure, propelling me through workouts, dinner preps, and hours-long commutes. This year, I haven't even opened it.

In his short film Papers (1991), the Japanese artist Yoshinao Satoh assembles thousands of newspaper images into a transfixing animation. Moving through a flurry of Japanese characters, moon phases, Go games, house plans and faces that grows ever faster, Satoh creates a mass-media collage that seems to anticipate the age of information overload. Amplifying the frenzied pace and mesmerising effect, he pairs the imagery with a propulsive work by the US composer Steve Reich.

We are being bombarded by information from many sources in our daily lives. Some of it is helpful, some is challenging, and some is anxiety-provoking. The many avenues available to get information may help or harm our efforts to get factual, evidence-based, believable information. Misinformation is just as prevalent as information and sometimes feeds into our desires rather than meeting our needs for reliable facts.

News has never been more accessible but for some, that's exactly the problem. Flooded with information and relentless updates, more and more people around the world are tuning out. The reasons vary: for some it's the sheer volume of news, for others the emotional toll of negative headlines or a distrust of the media itself. In online forums devoted to mindfulness and mental health, people discuss how to step back, from setting limits to cutting the news out entirely.

Avoiding threatening information reduces discomfort in the short run but doesn't fix underlying problems.

Memory is indeed limited, though humans often do not perceive this restriction. Prolonged sleep deprivation can blur the lines between memory and reality, creating a false sense of remembrance.