A Remedy for Information Overload That's Only Causing More Headaches

 Communicating amongst each other “the social life” has evolved dramatically for centuries, as well as for the amount of information our brains process day by day. Information overload has always existed and in various forms. Our brains are only capable of processing so much at once before we experience some sort of meltdown. Today we rely on e-mails, phone calls, text, instant messages, and many other forms of communication that keep control our tasks and social lives. The predicament we find in these new forms of interaction is that companies responsible for our communication capabilities are trying to decrease information overload; when in reality they are just closing our eyes with tools that may in fact control information overload and make life easier due to the overload.

Electronics have introduced newer and faster ways to communicate, and like I stated above make our lives easier. As the speed to communicate continues to increase so does the amount of information we are bombarded with.  This bombardment is all a way to gain revenue and power. In an Article by Jon Swarts, USA Today: “Social Media Users Grapple With Information Overload.” Contains a quote from Gmail product manager Paul McDonald.  “Americans now consume three times the information they did in 1960” (Swarts, USA Today). One can only imagine what a great business this would be to get into. It’s easy to trick thousands even millions in buying features that indeed are created to decrease over whelming environments caused by information overload. In that exact article Swarts talks about how companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and AOL are coming up with features that can directly connect one from an inbox to a social network like Facebook and Twitter to make things easier. In reality they are only creating ways that will give them more money. Swarts explains how marketers and advertisers base their expenditures on the size of a websites audience; therefore in order for social media networks to gain revenue will do what ever they can to get more people to stay loaded on their network. As a result companies are intertwining work with social life to make it seem like they are making things easier for people, but in fact  are know causing them a distraction without even knowing.