Information Overload

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously inward the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 1 - Discerning Our Information

The primary betoken of chapter 1 is that nosotros "are all succumbing to informationism: a non-discerning, vacuous faith inward the collection in addition to dissemination of information as a road to social progress in addition to personal happiness" (26), which, incidentally, "derails whatever yell for for moral wisdom past times emphasizing the is over the ought, observation over intimacy, in addition to measurement over meaning" (21). What this way is that:

(1) We study the happenings of things without beingness reflective of their implications, peculiarly inward the long-term: "Cyberculture is thus focused on the hither in addition to at i time that it implicity rejects the human take away for a long-term vision, allow lonely a moral compass" (28). Meanwhile, I would scrap that in that place is a chip of a state of war beingness waged on the authenticity of the "is" - inward that pop media (I'm talking well-nigh you, Fox News!) leverages its championship as a "news" arrangement to spread half-truths in addition to lies masquerading as "fact"; the upshot of which is that as our faith inward the "is" increases, our reasons for having this faith decreases. Who should nosotros believe? I think this is why many people are taking the easiest road in addition to reverting to the Bible as THE rootage (as Dawkins painfully reports).

(2) We accept a depth problem, inward that nosotros know to a greater extent than well-nigh the globe than ever, but accept less noesis of the globe than e'er (27); in addition to social media may increment our number of friends but they practise non guarantee whatever depth of human relationship alongside these friends (31). This is in all likelihood as much a lack of fourth dimension occupation as anything. How could nosotros maybe cultivate depth or character when nosotros accept to know thus many to a greater extent than things to participate inward the modern world? But in addition to thus at its foundation, this is a values issue: nosotros value quantity over quality, which translates to a value of information over knowledge. "We forget that improved knowing is also a affair of beingness a wiser someone inward a amend society" (33). "Informationism encourages informational promiscuity: impersonal relationships based on feigned intimacies in addition to lacking moral integrity" (35) says Schultze. And the antithesis of this occupation is intimacy, or maybe "empathetic intimacy" (33); in addition to if nosotros don't address this inward our cyber experiences, nosotros may discover intimacy evaporating from our lives exclusively (36). Again, is it whatever wonder that unopen to are choosing to read trivial else but the Bible? - this is a seemingly logical reaction against the informationalism of the times. Fundamentalism is, I am suggesting, a reaction against meaningless informationlism.

(3) We accept located pregnant inward the measureable (Wertheim would in all likelihood tell to the opposite that inward modern society, potentially upwards until the creation of cyberspace, measuring in addition to pregnant became interchangable, whereas cyberspace i time once again makes it possible to conceive of non-measurable substance). This makes observers of us all: "Our mediated interest inward cyberspace tin give the sack homecoming us mere observers of our ain neighborhoods, schools, in addition to communities of worship" (34). We should yell upwards what Lukacs said, "that truthful noesis is 'participant'... it 'consists of the human relationship of the knower in addition to the known'" (36).

What this boils downwards to is essentially what Carr calls our progression toward becoming "pancake people" - spread e'er wider, but e'er thinner. And I think that much of what Schultze critiques hither tin give the sack inward fact survive applied as to the realm of academia. For example, i cannot larn published without gathering data, no affair how insipid this information is in addition to how much nosotros know ahead of fourth dimension what the information volition reveal. Did the slap-up thinkers assemble information inward the past? - or did their insight come upwards from deep reflection? "Data-processing technologies are ennobling a novel degree of statistical kings acre dethroning veterans of the older methods of experience, mutual sense, in addition to fifty-fifty wisdom" (40). Further, I discover it exceedingly irritating that i tin give the sack hardly nation an catch without quoting someone who has been published earlier who has said the same before. This stymies our thinking inward that it normalizes it.

One of the points well-nigh this pancaking is that it squeezes out context. There is exactly no room. "According to this catch [i.e. Weiser's catch of ubiquitous computing], contexts in addition to shared meanings are irrelevant. Purpose, desire, obligation, virtue, in addition to imagination are meaningless noise. Even storytelling in addition to conversation evaporate into bits of signaling" (41). But are in that place possibilities for reimagining the Internet as context-rich? - for designing infinite for storytelling inside each chip of information? This way that nosotros accept to comprehend the fuzziness of information - it is non as uncomplicated as 0s in addition to 1s, but rather requires negotiation in addition to reflection upon "context, background, history, mutual knowledge, social resources" (43).