Twitter, Facebook, and Information Overload
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007I’ve been recently playing around with Facebook and Twitter, and — although extremely fascinating from an entertainment standpoint– I’m wondering if all this “communication” is just contributing to an already, immensely information overloaded world. It’s bad enough with the hundreds of emails I get every day (not including the spam); do I really need a minute-by-minute update on everything you are doing every day? Does knowing what forty of the people I know ate for lunch really enrich my life?
Most of the people I know are extremely busy, and it’s difficult enough to get a slice of time to discuss worthwhile and important things — much less sit around the water cooler and trade idle chitchat. Back when I was involved in day-to-day engineering development, you could tell the “good” developers from the “lousy” developers by their productivity — lines of good code they could churn out every day. Generally, the top tier, elite software developers were able to shut out all of the distractions of the day — emails, phone calls, unnecessary meetings, etc. — and really execute, and make things happen. On the other hand, the folks who just weren’t up to snuff would often be seen hanging out in the hallways and other people’s cubicles, getting a cup of coffee, chit-chatting with other people — ie think of Wally from Dilbert.
It’s all well and good that we can now provide micro-updates on every move of our life on the Twitters and Facebooks of the world, but it seems like what we really need is a massive information filter to prune down what is, and isn’t important. The fact that your biggest business partner was just acquired: let me see that. The details of what you paid for cab fare from the airport, that you just clipped your toenails, or had a bagel instead of a donut for breakfast: filter that out.
