The Renaissance Perspective: Harder, Not Easier, In the Wired World
I’m going to interrupt my usual Sunday analysis of something out of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s or the Financial Times to bring you a deep throught: staying ahead of the information wave is hard. Really, really hard, especially if you want to be a multi-dimensional, well-read, interested and interesting individual. Sure, if you want to geek out on any one thing, i.e., business, technology, the arts, foreign affairs, etc., it is a formidable but achievable task, especially given the tools and technologies at our disposal. But to actually ingest a broad array of information from wide variety of sources on a range of topics, this, my friends, is becoming ever more difficult. What do I read first, mainstream media in print (newspapers, magazines, newsletters, etc.), my feed reader with blogs and online mainstream news media, or maybe the comments on some good boards on topics that interest me? And what about podcasts? And Internet radio? And, oh yes, video? And there are literally thousands of new and relevant items each and every day, and this in my native tongue. What about if, say, I want to go deep on retail; doesn’t information from the Chinese BBS matter? Of course it does. Truth is, I find it a challenge just trying to manage stuff related to things directly in my areas of focus. There is so much more I want to read and know, because there is just so much good stuff out there. However, these 24 hour days are a painful limitation on what I can consume, not to mention those arising from capacity and processing constraints of my cerebral cortex.
So why this missive? Because it seems to me that we as individuals need to make clear choices, when it used to be that the choices were so easy. In the days of yesteryear, one could read a handful of the highest quality print news publications of the world, go to a smattering of cultural events (music, art, theater, etc.), read some good books, chat with learned people, and you’d pretty much be a well-rounded, erudite individual. Today you can do the same thing, except you’d be missing an enormous amount of what’s truly vibrant in the information landscape, the countless number of online conversations taking place every day by people with interesting information and perspectives that can enrich you as a sentinent being. That said, trying to digest all of this information is exceedingly difficult, especially when you are trying to consume it across multiple disciplines. It’s just not easy. So what’s the answer, focus on a few types of sources, consume them well, and be done with it? Or to cast a broad net, trying to assimilate the panoply of valuable content that’s out there but only going so deep due to the limitations of time and comprehension? Finally, should one simply say “I’m just going to stay current on X” (whatever X is for you) and conquer the information problem through specialization and focus?
I frequently find myself stuck among these three worlds, grappling with how much content I can reasonably consume across several domains without driving myself nuts. And as a result, I feel like I am doing a crappy job at all three things; neither deep, nor broad, nor particularly focused. Trying to bite off more than I can chew, I guess. I’m not sure if I am alone in seeking to manage this personal conflict. But what I do know is that the Internet and the Information Revolution, for all of its wonder and power, is making me feel a step behind the times. But shouldn’t all this information be making me feel a step ahead of the times and better informed? Hmmm.
