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Are we on information overload? (2012)

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Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#21

Post by speg »

Swizec wrote: post #4
sergiopreira wrote: post #2

Yes. Without a doubt. Newspapers were supposed to be curators of valuable content, but most went down the road of click-bait for advertising. I've also tried paid solutions, but most fail with the exception of the economist. Its the only one I pay for today....

I also pay for the Economist. It was key to keeping my sanity during the news cycle in 2020. But somehow what I actually read is Hacker News and has been for 10 years. The only thing that keeps staying.

Remember when there was a project that curated the best articles from hacker news and published them in a PDF monthly? Someone should bring that back!

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#22

Post by kjkjadksj »

syl_sau wrote: post #14
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #11

I hate it. I believe it comes down to the fact that most things are optimised for different things than what you use or want it for. i.e the best social network would connect you to the world, let you see what was important and give you that as easily and quickly as possible so you can spend as much of your life enjoying actual life and less using the tool, however it's ad supported and there goal is to keep you on i…

Yes, there's in fact an incentive mismatch here between the creator and the media. But it doesn't mean it wasn't there before to some extent. There are still great resources out there. So how do you spot them? Information does not come easy, and never has. If it's easy, you most likely won't remember it, which essentially makes the whole thing a loss of time. What I would aim for is focus . This is the big difference…

To be fair, I think the signal to noise ratio of your local branch library is a lot higher than what you’d find digitally these days

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#23

Post by q-base »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #11

I hate it. I believe it comes down to the fact that most things are optimised for different things than what you use or want it for. i.e the best social network would connect you to the world, let you see what was important and give you that as easily and quickly as possible so you can spend as much of your life enjoying actual life and less using the tool, however it's ad supported and there goal is to keep you on i…

I think that this is a good summary of the problem. The incentives seems misaligned. And I am not sure that paying for content would magically make this disappear. Or if so, then the companies should offer completely different products to paying customers, not just ad-free experiences.

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#24

Post by viksit »

yes?

but jokes aside - the luddite movement that a few gen z teens have started seems to have caught on. phones like the nothing and others seem to be gaining traction too if one believes the media.

i’m curious for hn’s perspective - how do you constrain and curate information? what’s the best line here?

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#25

Post by dingusdew »

q-base wrote: post #23
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #11

I hate it. I believe it comes down to the fact that most things are optimised for different things than what you use or want it for. i.e the best social network would connect you to the world, let you see what was important and give you that as easily and quickly as possible so you can spend as much of your life enjoying actual life and less using the tool, however it's ad supported and there goal is to keep you on i…

I think that this is a good summary of the problem. The incentives seems misaligned. And I am not sure that paying for content would magically make this disappear. Or if so, then the companies should offer completely different products to paying customers, not just ad-free experiences.

[dead]

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#26

Post by amelius »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #11

I hate it. I believe it comes down to the fact that most things are optimised for different things than what you use or want it for. i.e the best social network would connect you to the world, let you see what was important and give you that as easily and quickly as possible so you can spend as much of your life enjoying actual life and less using the tool, however it's ad supported and there goal is to keep you on i…

If only HN had some collaborative filtering to present me only the stuff I need to know about ...

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#27

Post by clnq »

viksit wrote: post #24

yes? but jokes aside - the luddite movement that a few gen z teens have started seems to have caught on. phones like the nothing and others seem to be gaining traction too if one believes the media. i’m curious for hn’s perspective - how do you constrain and curate information? what’s the best line here?

Disconnecting works for me. I don't participate in social media outside Hackernews and only read RSS feeds and newsletters from high signal-to-noise sources. About phones, I have a basic smartphone that I use for calls, messaging, calendar, and some day-to-day life apps.

I used to be hooked on social media like Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, and mainstream media. But over time, I've grown increasingly disillusioned with the quality of the content soup on them. So for me, there was never a need to constrain and curate information actively.

As Matthew McConaughey wrote in their book "Greenlights" - "When we decrease the options [choices] that don't feed us, we eventually, almost accidentally, have more options in front of us that do." Worked out that way for me with information. Just decrease the amount of algorithmic sludge you consume, and you'll find that the quality of the information you take in increases.

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#28

Post by jrussino »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #20
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #11

I hate it. I believe it comes down to the fact that most things are optimised for different things than what you use or want it for. i.e the best social network would connect you to the world, let you see what was important and give you that as easily and quickly as possible so you can spend as much of your life enjoying actual life and less using the tool, however it's ad supported and there goal is to keep you on i…

If you paid for that it would be. There's your solution.

Personally, I'd be glad to pay to "fix" this but it doesn't seem to be an option. I pay for YouTube premium, for example, so that I and my kids (especially) aren't constantly bombarded by ads. Taking that option doesn't change the fundamental nature of the ad-based ecosystem/algorithm though. And I still get in-content plugs for SquareSpace, BetterHelp, Athletic Greens, etc, etc, etc...

Re: Are we on information overload? (2012)

#30

Post by mansoon »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #22
syl_sau wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's in fact an incentive mismatch here between the creator and the media. But it doesn't mean it wasn't there before to some extent. There are still great resources out there. So how do you spot them? Information does not come easy, and never has. If it's easy, you most likely won't remember it, which essentially makes the whole thing a loss of time. What I would aim for is focus . This is the big difference…

To be fair, I think the signal to noise ratio of your local branch library is a lot higher than what you’d find digitally these days

Yeah but turn your signal producer into one that has less noise and find out that the world is noisy and entropy wins in the end and that people are just other systems inside the system and all of it has it's own goals.

And so why bother? Embrace correlation, seed the world with noise, burn yourself up as you and all of it burns down and we wait for the telomeres to do the inevitable.

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