:: basic concepts of new media ::

::    COM 300    ::    winter 2007 ::

Week 3: Information Overload

questions

Societal / Personal Impacts

• How many times a day do you go on-line, and for how long? Count every time you check your e-mail, AIM, facebook, research, look at a class web-site, etc
• How has this multitude of information caused problems within society by creating negative situations brought on by false information?
• Do you think that schools at the junior high or high school level should implement new courses on the internet? Courses such as how to determine the validity and reliability of information? Or even courses such as how to use new technology and programs such as garageband to further educational understanding?
• Should there be any consequences to those who provide blatantly incorrect information?
• Is it better for information and science the advance slower but make sure everything is perfectly right? Or, is it better to sometimes not need 100% accuracy before moving on in hopes of ending up a decade ahead of where you’d be if you questioned every little thing?
• In the 21st century, information is relatively easy to access and learning through the internet is quite possible. What are some of your thoughts about why people dont use the internet to find solutions? Or why many communities are un able to access the information they need? Thoughts or comments about the digital divide?
• Before I read these articles I didn’t really view the internet as an “Information Swamp” but more of a “Vast Valley of Info and Too Much Porn.” How do you feel?
• Is the idea of “Information Anxiety” as moronic as the concept of diagnosing JLS (Jumpy Leg syndrome)?
• A lot of companies need to keep their employees up to date in the world of technology. Do you think companies now-a-days spend more time training their staff?
• How do you sift through the internet? Google search? Forums?
• How do you combat the information overload that happens during research?
• It seems that these articles were both written quite some time ago. Do you feel that advancements in technology (refinement of search engines, etc.) has made the information overload a bit more manageable than what was being described in our readings?
• Are we overwhelmed with information in the present age?
• Is there really so much information on the internet that it is difficult to find the info we want?
• Will our ability to process information ever catch up with our ability to generate it?
• If there is a limit to how much information people can process, is there a limit to how much information can exist?
• Is information overload a new phenomenon that can be attributed to the Internet, or have people always been overwhelmed by the amount of information that is available to them?
• Looking at Nelson’s reason for information overload… is anyone actually able to comprehend and have access to all information?
• Would anyone be willing to return to our old means of information gathering (Encyclopedias, Almanacs, etc.) or is the Internet the only way to gather information now?
• Do you think having to much information is worse than having to little?
• What are some ways to develop the internet to personally make finding information easier for you?
• Do you personally have a hard time finding the right information when doing research for school?
• We are already surrounded by billboards and plasma TV’s blaring advertisements, will we one day look up at the moon and see the Nike swoosh carved into it?

Credibility

• As more information has become available on the internet, has it become easier or harder to tell which pieces are reliable?
• What was an experience you had on the internet (maybe when you were younger, especially, and the internet had just started becoming a big deal) where you just didn’t know where to begin on research or you were caught at a very unreliable source? Do you think this is still happening as much today?
• What is your view of internet plagiarism? Do you think the content of our World Wide Web need to be censored at some point? Why or why not?
• How can someone know if the information found on the Internet is credible? What makes it credible?
• How much damage does information overload, and the kinds of useless information associated with it, affect scholarly research?
• How do you sort through credible resources when researching on the Internet for school-related papers and projects? Is there a never failing technique?
• Can (should?) information resources such as wikipedia.org attain scholarly status? If so, what additions or improvements need to be made?
• Is there really any way to find reliable information without spending hours researching online?
• What kind of questions do you ask to evaluate information on the internet? Do you use some of Solock’s questions?
• Does anyone already use Solock’s “content questions” or is willing to use them? Are we taking the Internet too seriously?
• How trustworthy do you think society is of the information they see on the internet?
• Why does the author of the second article not ask about sources when he brings up questions to ask for quality of content?
• By accrediting an “expert” (ie: College professor with a Ph. D. or professional athlete) or to a source of information, do you believe it is more credible? Why or why not?

Adoption, Technologies, Development

• In the second article the author claims that “nothing about the internet as it is is going to change significantly in the foreseeable future.” Do you believe that this statement is true?
• How useful do you think features such as Googles “Cached” pages are when trying to locate specific information? Do you think other search engines will try to mimic this feature?
• Is advertising the only difference between a big search engine and a smaller, more reliable one?
• What was the whole gopher thing about? I didn’t really follow what they were saying.
• [I]nformation itself has no value, it is communication and sharing of information and its meaning which gives it value”... do you think “Shared by Yahoos” is a good alternative of current search engine?
• According to the First Amendment, anyone can post almost anything on the web. Do you think this affects the quality of information on the Internet? How?
• How do you think Internet research affects traditional research? In today’s society, which do you think is more important?
• In the section of Current Trend, Nelson mentioned hypertext, the system that allow us to direct information and shorten our research time by providing narrow information. Do you think it is really useful? Or did it actually eliminate sources that we really looking for?

Approval/Useless Info:

• Is there any realistic way for the internet to get all of the “useless/outdated” information filtered out of it? If so, whose job would it be to do this? The author him/herself? One corporation? Could we even leave it up to a person to monitor this? Or would that give them too much influence over what we get exposed to and what we do not?
• Do you think there will ever be a point in the Internet’s future where there will be a censor on ALL websites and a pre-approval process to avoid faulty information on the Web?
• I have one rhetorical question, is it possible however to limit the amount of information added daily to the internet? Is it a liberty or a right to be a self-publisher online?
• How do you propose we control the amount of information that is available on the internet? Is there a way? It seems that since anyone can publish anything they want there is no limit on what is published and how much is published.
• If they continue to allow anyone to publish on the internet will all the information begin to be false?
• If putting information out there on the Internet is a continuous event, how big is the sphere of useless information going to get before we find a way to fight back?
• Do you think the Internet will change at all in the future regarding what is published on it? Could there be classifications made, categorizing certain websites regarding their authors, content, etc.?
• In Jack Solock’s article he said that everyone can “publish” anything on the Internet. Do you think that this is OK, or should there be certain restrictions in order to publish something on the net?
• In Mark Nelson’s article he said that one problem with all this information is that people have to sort through what is old/outdated and what is new information. Is there anyone who takes off this old information and “unpublishes” it? Or does it stay out in the world forever?
• Whose job is it to get rid of all the outdated websites? Would this make search engines more effective?
• Should we implement more strict rules on webmasters so that they can “clean-up” the websites once they become useless? If so, what should be the guidelines in enforcing these rules? Should we all be educated in this matter?

Media / Convergence

• How has instant access to information changed our views on traditional media such as books, magazines and newspapers?
• What will happen when media and information is forced into our daily lives without our consent? Is this an infringement on human rights?
• Will the state of printed encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, and other information sources ever be the same again?
• Will the digitization of traditional media (newspapers and magazines) provide more reliable or varied information online or will it only lead to more competition between corporations?
• Do people still turn to old methods of finding information or do we all turn to the internet? Why?
• Are people more concerned with time than with precision? Are people’s lives so hectic that will settle for information that may or may not be true as long as they received it in a time-efficient manner? Why?
• What are the other quality consideration in the internet besides content, access, and design?
• Will the information on the internet become cluttered like an advertisement? Do we have some kind of responsibilities in preventing that from happening?

Future Technologies?

• What is the next step that search engines such as Google, Infoseek and Lycos need to take to help eliminate 'information overload'?
• Do you believe that in the future, the development of new ways to navigate through the internet will emerge?
• What advancements can we predict in trying to search for information as the Internet becomes exponentially larger? How will the next generation of search engines run or look?
• If things continue on the same track that they are now, we can safely assume that more and more information will be created, processed, and stored and rates more rapid than ever before. Do you think technology will be able to keep up with this, or will it begin to lag behind again and perhaps catch up later in the future?
• If this “information overload” is such a concern, with all the information and technology we have today no one has thought of a program that would sort information more specifically than our current methods?
• What do you think is a good way to start organizing and processing our information back-up better? Will nano techonology help us now or in the future with this storing and organizing issue?
• The World Wide Web is quickly expanding larger and larger. With new developments which make things more user-friendly, there are also new developments such as viruses and trojans which make things much more difficult. Do you think over time developers will find ways to phase out the negative aspects of internet development?

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