For something which was once written off as something which is doomed to bounce around geekville, the internet has come such a long way that there are some people in this world whose lives come to a screeching halt when they can’t connect for whatever reason. You can perhaps handle some internet downtime for a couple to a few hours at most, but can you just imagine not being able to connect for an entire week or so?
Things are developing in ways many of us would have never imagined as well, such as how the Internet of Things (IOT) is coming along. The process of your internet connected fridge automatically ordering a re-fill of whatever essentials you’re running out of is now a tangible reality as opposed to being a figment of someone’s imagination or the subject of a science fiction topic.
For all the good that the internet brings however, what was intended to be its main positive factor of openness has long since turned into a real hindrance. Because of the openness of the World Wide Web, anybody can publish what they consider to be some information which needs to be put out there, whether or not that information is constructive and accurate and whether or not that information is of any use to anybody.
Obviously credibility plays an important role in how information is perceived, but the internet is indeed a place where you can get information supporting whatever cause it is you’re pushing, whether good or bad, or indeed if it’s downright destructive. I mean never mind any information which argues against your cause, right?
Information overload is another problem which comes with being sold the idea of being able to access as much of this information as you like at the click of a mouse button and a few taps of the keyboard. Just try to search for anything and between the mind-blowing number of results which come up in the search engine and the realisation that many of the top-ranked results are nothing but fluffy junk designed to advertise something to you, you might start to feel like it’s all a bit too much.
You’re not wrong in suspecting that a lot of information online is indeed just designed to lead you into completing some sort of purchase — that’s why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is such a huge industry and while there’s nothing wrong with it in itself, it’s all the secondary industries that pop up around it which are a problem. People are racing to get information published, focussing on targeting popular keywords and key-phrases instead of genuinely putting information out there that can truly benefit readers.
So yes, you might still have to sift through a lot of “empty” information in the search results to get to the meaty, informative info, but you should learn to go directly to specific sources if you want to avoid information overload. If you want some very specific information about Cheltenham Day 3 Tips for instance, what’s the likeliest place at which you’re going to find that information? It’s the event organiser’s website, isn’t it, and not some lifestyle website or blog where the reader is clearly all over the place?
