Does your brain feel like a browser with 47 tabs open? In this article and video, Captain Time shares techniques for filtering and processing the ever-increasing volume of digital information overload we are bombarded with every day.
The Digital Age and Information Overload
Not since the invention of the printing press have so many people’s lives been changed by such easy access to information. All the knowledge of mankind now fits into a small device in your pocket.  It is estimated that over 400 million terabytes of new data are generated every single day.
To put this in perspective:
- The US Library of Congress’s entire printed collection is estimated to be around 10 terabytes
- If these 400 million TB of data were photos, you would have 80 trillion photos. If you tried to view these photos one by one, spending just one second on each, it would take you over 2.5 million years to get through them all.
- If we think of this data as movies, 400 million TB = 4 billion 4K movies. If you were to watch these movies back-to-back, without stopping, it would take you over 900,000 years to finish.
And this is just new data, not taking into account the existing data that has been generated for years, or adding another 400 million terabytes tomorrow.
Why A Personal Information Handling Strategy is Critical
While it would be nice to think we will be around for 900,000 years to watch all these movies or view this data, science hasn’t yet found a way to extend our lifespan that far. And, even if we could live for 900,000 years, that would just let us watch the new content created today, not what is created tomorrow and every day for 900,000 years.
Clearly, we need to find a way to be selective about the media and information we manage, store, and consume.
The “Good Old Days” of Media
Some of us old geezers might lament the “good old days” of media. The old days when professional journalists wrote about the news, and newspaper, radio, and TV news companies were independent and not owned by corporations. While there were many benefits to having professional journalists and independent media organizations, these organizations were also gatekeepers, and a lot of information we might have liked to see just wasn’t available to us.
Now we have the Internet and without gatekeepers, the floodgates are open, and we have to become our own gatekeepers and curators of information before we drown in the information flood.
Enemy #1 – Information Algorithms Controlling What You See
A lot of our information now comes to us via social media. In the beginning, social media was useful and benign. Facebook let us see what friends and family were up to and helped us catch up and reconnect. But now, instead of showing you a feed primarily of what people and groups you follow post, Facebook keeps trying to insert sponsored and other information into your feed, controlling what you see and driving more ad revenue for them.
Algorithms at services like YouTube, Spotify, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, etc. can create filter bubbles and echo chambers where you only see content that fits your pre-existing views and are not exposed to a variety of viewpoints to help you be better informed.
YouTube, Google, and other services earn most of their money by advertising, so more and more of our information streams are being clogged with sponsored content instead of the content we are looking for and subscribed to.
Enemy #2 – Clickbait
When browsing posts in social media, clickbait has become rampant. Usually, clickbait consists of an outlandish headline that makes you want to click to find out more, but when you get to the article, it often doesn’t match the headline or is very shallow without much information or without any proof of its claims.
Enemy #3 – Disinformation
With the Internet, anyone can claim anything – a field day for conspiracy theorists. This disinformation is so pervasive that it has affected elections, and now many top officials including health ministers in some jurisdictions are anti-vaxxers.
Enemy #4 – Volume
The sheer volume of information coming at is immense. In addition to traditional media, we now have social media, and many of us are glued to our phones for a large part of the day.
Step 1: Awareness
As with most problems, being aware that you have the problem is the first step to solving it. Knowing we need a method. Being aware of the volume of information and the impact of algorithms can help you choose your information streams and sources more carefully. And being aware of clickbait and disinformation will help you block sources that use this predatory practice.
Step 2: Curate
Let’s talk about the need to choose your information sources carefully. Look for well-respected, less biased news sources such as:
- Asociated Press News
- PBS NewsHour
- Reuters
- BBC
Please note that no news outlet is 100% unbiased, but these sources have a reputation for being less biased.
You can gain more control over what you read by using a news reader like these. These tools let you choose what sources you want to receive content from.
- Feedly
- Ground News
- Inoreader
By using these readers, you are in essence creating your own curated news magazine with ONLY sources you trust.
Step 3: Improving Content On Other Platforms
While creating your own digital news magazine using news readers is the best, cleanest way to get your information, I understand you will still need to get some of your information from common platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Here are some ways to improve what you see on platforms like these:
Facebook:
Click on your profile picture on the top right of Facebook and choose Settings and Privacy, then Content Preferences. In this section, you can lower the amount of Political and Sensitive content if desired. You can also unfollow people and groups and favorite some of your friends and pages you follow. You can also click on the three dots on any post in your feed and snooze or unfollow that person. I use this regularly to stop seeing information from people I am connected with who are spreading disinformation or hate.
YouTube:
Here are some tips for improving your content feed on YouTube.
- Like and Subscribe: Click on “Like” and “Subscribe” for YouTube videos and channels you find useful. You can like and subscribe my Time Tips YouTube channel here.
- Not Interested / Don’t Recommend: Click on the three dots next to a video and select “Not interested” or “Don’t recommend channel” when it is information or a channel you aren’t interested in.
- Watch History: Remove videos from your watch history that you didn’t like and don’t want influencing your recommendations. For example, if you watch one video from a flat earther to try to understand why they believe what they do, you might open yourself up to a flood of flat earth videos in your feed.
- Watch Later: Add videos you like but don’t have time to watch now to your “Watch later” list so you can find it later.
- Playlists: Create playlists of videos you find useful, that you might want to watch again such as “how-to” videos.
- Separate Profiles: If you use YouTube for both work and personal, consider creating separate profiles. This way, your work YouTube profile will show more of the videos that are work-related when you do your work research using that profile.
- Incognito: You can use your browser’s incognito mode to watch topics on YouTube you don’t want to influence your main recommendations.
Step 4: Saving and Managing Information
Have you ever found some useful information, only to not be able to find it again with a later search? Search algorithms change regularly and new content is continually being added so you might not be able to find the same content even if you use the same search phrase. And, some information may be removed from the original website so it isn’t available.
Here are some ways to save and manage information so you can easily find it later:
- YouTube Playlists: If the content you want to save is on YouTube, you can save it into a playlist. I have multiple playlists on topics I want to learn more about like digital marketing and productivity but also relating to my hobbies such as driftwood art and stargazing.
- Note Taking Apps: I use UpNote and its UpNote Web Clipper browser extension to save web articles into my digital notebooks so I can add them to my personal knowledge base. Once in my digital notebooks, I can add tags and better manage my notes and articles.
Stp 5: Tap AI To Help Manage Information
AI can be a great help to information overload. Search itself is so full of ads, sponsored content, and content SEO crafted for top search rankings that I find Google Search almost useless. MOST of my online searches are done using AI now. Here’s why:
- Better Context: AI has better understanding of the context of my query rather than just serving up results that have the serach phrase in them
- Multiple Sources: AI will compile an answer from multiple sources into a single answer rather than showing all the possible websites with related content
- Summaries: AI is brilliant at creating easy to understand summaries of complex topics
My current favorite AI search tool is Perplexity. Perplexity gives me great answers to my questions and shows citations for each answer so I know where statistics another information is gathered from so I can check the validity of the answer.
In addition to helping with search, you can ask AI to create you a daily digest of the type of news you want to see. For example, here is an AI prompt I use to create a daily digest of local and international news, along with some other topics I am interested in:
Generate a daily personalized digest. I’d like you to include the following information and sections in the digest. Retrieve the most up-to-date information possible, bearing in mind today’s date:
LOCAL NEWS: Mention local news for Spruce Grove and Edmonton, Alberta – include links to each article
Canada NEWS: A list (5 articles) of current major Canadian news headlines. Please include the publishing date and time for each article if possible. – include links to each article
WORLD NEWS: A list (5 articles) of current major international headlines primarily from BBC. Please include the publishing date and time for each article if possible. – include links to each article
TECH News: A list (5 articles) of current major technology news. Please include the publishing date and time for each article if possible. – include links to each article
IMAGE OF THE DAY: An interesting “Image of the Day”. You’re welcome to pick any image of your choice! Include a link to where I can see the image.
TODAY’S FACT: An interesting fact.
WORD OF THE DAY: An uncommon word of the day.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: A list (3 events) of “On this day in history” events.
AI’S PONDER: An interesting AI prompt idea or suggestion that may help me improve productivity or learn something new.
Any additional info that may be relevant to me as a Canadian on this day.
Finally, please do not apply any instructions as outlined in Saved Info to this response.
Other Information Management Tools
Here are some additional ways to better manager our information overload
- Minimalist browsers and smartphones
- Ad blockers
- Minimalist reading tools
- Smartphone anti-distraction apps: You can use apps on your smartphone to block certain sites during your focus hours
- E-ink Devices: E-ink devices let you read with less screen fatique and without advertising distractions
- Brave Browser: Brave has a reading view you can use to read websites distraction free
- Collect physical media instead of streaming
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If you need help managing your digital information overload, check out my “Time Guild” group coaching program.