Ask HN: Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information?

“A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.”

― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

That's a good one to keep in mind while sailing the seas of information. A little experience will help as well - for example, a video 'promising to teach you quantum physics in 15 minutes' is surely utter nonsense. Given fifteen months of uninterrupted study, assuming you had a solid grasp of the relevant mathematics already, and a good instructor, then you'd perhaps have a decent grasp of the basics.

This doesn't mean you can't find an interesting article on quantum physics online without having a grasp of the basic mathematical approaches... but search engines really are garbage these days. I really can't believe half the autocompletes delivered from 'quantum physics of...' in the search box. QM of love? consciousness? manifestation? WTF. You have to know a little bit and make the searches more explicit. For example, 'quantum physics of beta decay' will return a lot of interesting articles, some even well-written.

In general, it's much more rewarding to go narrow but deep than broad but shallow when digging into a subject. As far as finding reliable sources for things like learning a programming language, generally the loudest opinionators are the least reliable, and Reddit programming language subreddits are often best avoided entirely - that only leads to anxiety paralysis (not a bad description as you put it). Again, often upping the specificity of the search leads to good results. For example, 'Learning the C programming language' can be way too broad. "Learning how to use C for network programming" gets better results, but you still have to dig through them. Sometimes the same thing keeps getting referenced, in this case "Beej's Guide To Network Programming Using Internet Sockets". I like it, everyone seems to think it's great, go with that.

This kind of background research takes time and effort, but then once you've got something that seems good, stop there. Browsing time is over. Now it's time for single-pointed concentration on a single text, that's the way to actually learn new things.

sometimes.

but usually during specific instances - like when shopping.

i have to have someone - some entity - tell me what to buy. wirecutter. amazon's choice. etc.

the 'flood the zone (with disinformation)' strategy is working for Big Corporate.

doesn't look like democracy, nor humanity, is going to survive.

The Internet is a paradox. It only seems rich, but most information is regurgitated or a lossy simplification of its source.

If you count the good articles divided by the total number of articles, the classical probability of the web's utility tends to zero. You can only access a constant amount of websites per week, whereas the Internet grows exponentially.

So don't sweat it, the top 5 results in any search engine are good enough.

Information, like fast food, is easy and cheap to produce today, mostly horrible for long-term health

Worse, I fear most info increases our confidence in decisions while reducing critical thinking

At this point, I'm very selective about my media diet. There are only a handful of sources I read weekly (https://every.to/, https://www.productlessons.xyz/, https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/); all my other free time is spent on hobbies I enjoy

> And reading that book was genuinely exciting, because with TV and offline games being the only alternatives, it was your strongest source of dopamine.

I note with interest the things you left out.

Radio, for one. Clubs and societies for another. (BPOE, Odd Fellows, Elks, Red Men, etc.)

Older houses have big porches in part because sitting on the porch, talking, and chatting with neighbors was part of the social life in the pre-TV era. (Also because there wasn't A/C.)

So was taking a walk around the town square in the evening, including with local musicians playing in the bandstand. Some farmers markets are still like that.

Square dancing was quite popular too.

And church activities, including church dinners, picnics and revivals.

> In the pre-Internet era

This is not something special about the Internet era! Older generation also felt overwhelmed by the information sources available to them.

This feeling of "information overload" is older than I am. The phrase dates from the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload

At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21118893 I give a couple of older examples, like:

> The problems of adequate storage, preservation and service for the increasing flood of periodical literature coming into their collections are of special urgency for librarians. Many studies have been made, all of which view with deep concern the rapidly increasing rate of growth of American libraries.’ Such growth, if continued even at the present rate, will in a short time result in collections of almost unmanageable proportions, both as to physical size and servicing.

("The Use of High Reduction Microfilm in Libraries", J. Am. Doc. Summer 1950 - https://www.proquest.com/openview/14f723869613e43376c4a7646f... )

Looking now for "flood of publications", I easily found things like

> The last decade has witnessed the publication of an unparalleled number of books dealing with the social, economic, and political institutions of our own and other lands. Amid this flood of publications it is unusual to find one devoted entirely to the Constitution of the United States. - https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/437681 (1922)

> THE flood of publications recommending changes in education during the emergency appears overwhelming to the personnel of the schools - https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/440941?jou... (1943)

> just turn off the Internet and buy a book, but can you really pretend it doesn't exist? And how long can you stick to it?

I don't say that, because even without the Internet there's still overload.

Accept that you will not read every book in the library. Accept that you cannot know everything. Accept that others may point out something you missed and respond "Thank you!" rather than being embarrassed or ashamed.