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

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

#51

Post by rg111 »

Yes, I suffer dearly from it.

Sometimes I get so overwhelmed, it causes cognitive paralysis and I just mindlessly browse HN, Twitter, Reddit etc. Or I just go on accumulating stuff.

I append to my list of to-read books, to my to-read papers, to-check-out languages and frameworks, to-read articles and so on.

With information overflow, I have become an information aggregator- I download dozens of podcast episodes, add a lot of RSS feeds to reader apps, bookmark a lot of Tweets, save a lot of articles to Pocket, and the list goes on.

I am always anxious, always worried that I am not getting any work done or making any intellectual progress. This feeling lingers strongly and I keep aggregrating "stuff".

Some of it is me. I am interested in wide variety of topics- wildly unrelated. I get a very little done, but keep adding to " to-X" lists.

I am seriously worried about this and it upsets my mental piece.

I have to brutally prioritize. Or learn to simply abandon wishes. Or I am going to be crushed, if I am not already.

Funny thing is I never waste time watching memes, following stupid social-media or playing games. I am having to choose from unhealthily large amount of stuff that will enrich me, make me better. This is was makes the matter depressingly worse.

No enrichment is actually happening because of the paralysis I talked about earlier.

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

#52

Post by rg111 »

johnny_castaway wrote: post #12
javajosh wrote: post #3

>Does anyone else feel like this? I have, and I called it "info gorging", and I would occasionally indulge in it. But the problem is that you don't fully integrate what you've seen with what you know or believe. At best, you've accumulated a set of superficial ideas to be fleshed out later. At worst, you've given yourself a feeling of preemptive failure, looking at all the things you could do, and yet not doing them.…

> Old fashioned discipline starts in the mind. You must be ruthless with yourself, and make a determination Well, I think we're kind of in agreement here. I'd now need to essentially torture myself to do something that used to be a fun hobby, and required zero effort. > I'm reading this book Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? Let's say you search for a JavaScript book on Amazon. It seems to yield more results than…

> Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book?

I have solved this particular problem but have myriads of others. (See my main comment on this thread.)

First, when you are looking for a book in a particular topic, search Kagi/You.com, and sneak into 4/5 lists quickly. Some books will appear in almost all lists. Take a note.

Second, append reddit to search term and look into 3/4 threads. Take a note of highly upvoted or "+1"d responses.

Third, ask people you know who are experts in that topic. Ask 2/3/4 persons. They likely have read many books on that topic. Take a note of their top recommendations.

Fourth, there are some titles ubiquitous on HN, twitter, Reddit, word-of-mouth in academia/industry. Such titles are The Algorithms Design Manual, Designing Data Intensive Applications, etc. When you look into a new topic, there will be 1/2 titles that you will instantly recognize. Take a note.

Now you have narrowed down to 3/4 titles. Find them. Taste them, couple this with Third, and you find the most appropriate book for your situation.

The whole process takes 20-25 minutes excluding the calls with people IRL.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

Parker_Powell wrote: post #48

It's normal to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that's thrown at you, especially in this day and age. But here's some good news: You can control how much information you're exposed to! It can be as simple as deleting a bunch of social media apps from your phone, or setting up filters so that only the emails you actually want are coming into your inbox. Or maybe you just need a break from the internet ent…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by hoseja »

javajosh wrote: post #13
johnny_castaway wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Old fashioned discipline starts in the mind. You must be ruthless with yourself, and make a determination Well, I think we're kind of in agreement here. I'd now need to essentially torture myself to do something that used to be a fun hobby, and required zero effort. > I'm reading this book Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? Let's say you search for a JavaScript book on Amazon. It seems to yield more results than…

>torture It's not torture though, its a fight. Your mind is lying to you. Right now, you're not in control of your attention, and your mind doesn't want to give up that control. It's a mutiny! And you'll enjoy being the captain! >Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? It seems you're a beginner programmer; you could do worse than "Eloquent JavaScript": https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=eloquent+... Th…

You're not really fighting only your mind, you're fighting psychology experts who dedicate their lives to most effectively exploit your attention.

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

#55

Post by johnny_castaway »

rg111 wrote: post #52
johnny_castaway wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Old fashioned discipline starts in the mind. You must be ruthless with yourself, and make a determination Well, I think we're kind of in agreement here. I'd now need to essentially torture myself to do something that used to be a fun hobby, and required zero effort. > I'm reading this book Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? Let's say you search for a JavaScript book on Amazon. It seems to yield more results than…

> Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? I have solved this particular problem but have myriads of others. (See my main comment on this thread.) First, when you are looking for a book in a particular topic, search Kagi/You.com, and sneak into 4/5 lists quickly. Some books will appear in almost all lists. Take a note. Second, append reddit to search term and look into 3/4 threads. Take a note of highly upvoted or "+1"d…

This is a perfectly good advice.

But my point is, note just how many separate bits of information you're looking at to make the decision. 4 threads on Reddit, 4 threads on HN, and you're already in the hundreds of different opinions! All of them coming from people you don't know, with different background, different learning style, etc.

Compare to going to a book store with ZERO external information, and picking the one YOU seem to like reading the most, without those hundreds of voices in your head.

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

#56

Post by johnny_castaway »

rg111 wrote: post #51

Yes, I suffer dearly from it. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed, it causes cognitive paralysis and I just mindlessly browse HN, Twitter, Reddit etc. Or I just go on accumulating stuff . I append to my list of to-read books, to my to-read papers, to-check-out languages and frameworks, to-read articles and so on. With information overflow, I have become an information aggregator- I download dozens of podcast episodes, add…

So much this!

I'm so annoyed that I keep consuming all that pseudo-educational content without actually gaining any knowledge from it.

I don't have anything particular to learn, but anytime I hit something interesting, I search for it, see how much material I would need to get through, and I give up and revert to browsing HN.

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

#57

Post by somdax »

rg111 wrote: post #51

Yes, I suffer dearly from it. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed, it causes cognitive paralysis and I just mindlessly browse HN, Twitter, Reddit etc. Or I just go on accumulating stuff . I append to my list of to-read books, to my to-read papers, to-check-out languages and frameworks, to-read articles and so on. With information overflow, I have become an information aggregator- I download dozens of podcast episodes, add…

I am the same way.

One thing that helped me in the past to focus and move past the paralysis was to meditate and exercise.

Life has been hectic and I lost my routine, but I will try then again once I can establish a routine again.

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

#58

Post by warrenm »

>In the pre-Internet era, when you were curious about tech X, you'd walk to a store, skim through a bunch of books, pick the one you liked the most, and take it home

Nothing prevents you from still walking to a store, skimming the titles, and picking one (more-or-less at random, it sounds, from your description)

Or going to your local library

Or checking what book(s) are required/suggested reading for a course on the topic at a local college/university

It can be just as hard to pick a "good book"[0] as a "good web page"[1] .. but I find it easier to determine relative quality of a book faster than a website - and a good book will have multiple citations (other books, papers, websites, etc)

A less-expensive option than the book route (unless you're visiting your local library, of course), is to browse through the magazine racks at a good newsstand or bookstore

And don't forget the power of borrowing books on your Kindle[2] or similar :)

---------------

[0] https://antipaucity.com/2012/12/10/finding-your-niche/#.YmqQ...

[1] https://antipaucity.com/2006/10/23/authority-issues-online/#...

[2] https://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2012/11/varying-your-re...

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

#59

Post by warrenm »

jleyank wrote: post #2

The firehose aspect of Google makes it hard for me to separate the wheat from the chaff for any "popular" topic. Ad's, trolls, ... They're ordered by the magic, not by the correctness or usefulness. When I went into the bookstore looking for an Algorithm book, I went to the computer section. I didn't start at the first rack of books and scan until I found what I wanted. Nor did I look at the best-seller list.

>They're ordered by the magic, not by the correctness or usefulness

I agree 100% on this: a well-curated set of search engine results or directories (like how Yahoo! started back in the day) would be immensely useful today

Getting to the well-curated list, though, does bring its own Catch-22: who determines what's "good" initially? How do you collect enough "qualified" editors/submitters to get it rolling? How do you keep from falling into the broken world of social voting[0]?

------------

[0] https://antipaucity.com/2015/09/16/like-problems-social-voti...

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

#60

Post by rg111 »

johnny_castaway wrote: post #55
rg111 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, but the problem is, _which_ book? I have solved this particular problem but have myriads of others. (See my main comment on this thread.) First, when you are looking for a book in a particular topic, search Kagi/You.com, and sneak into 4/5 lists quickly. Some books will appear in almost all lists. Take a note. Second, append reddit to search term and look into 3/4 threads. Take a note of highly upvoted or "+1"d…

This is a perfectly good advice. But my point is, note just how many separate bits of information you're looking at to make the decision. 4 threads on Reddit, 4 threads on HN, and you're already in the hundreds of different opinions! All of them coming from people you don't know, with different background, different learning style, etc. Compare to going to a book store with ZERO external information, and picking the…

> and you're already in the hundreds of different opinions!

No, you aren’t. Beause there are overlaps. (Seen Venn diagrams, btw?)

> with ZERO external information

This is a very bad advice. When you don't read those threads or blogs, you are not taking advantage of accumulated human knowledge over the years.

And this approach will more likely to lead to poor choice of books.

____

One method I forgot to mention- I also look at reputations of publishers/series. If a book is coming out of Green Tea Press, Pragmatic Bookshelf, or Manning, I will tend to favor them more.

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