Too Much Information

The New York Times–bestselling co-author of Nudge explores how more information can make us happy or miserable—and why we sometimes avoid it but sometimes seek it out. How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week's weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people's lives. Of course, says Sunstein, we are better off with stop signs, warnings on prescription drugs, and reminders about payment due dates. But sometimes less is more. What we need is more clarity about what information is actually doing or achieving.

The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of "information overload," yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says Ann M. Blair in this intriguing book, the invention of the printing press and the ensuing abundance of books provoked sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European scholars to register complaints very similar to our own. Blair examines methods of information management in ancient and medieval Europe as well as the Islamic world and China, then focuses particular attention on the organization, composition, and reception of Latin reference books in print in early modern Europe. She explores in detail the sophisticated and sometimes idiosyncratic techniques that scholars and readers developed in an era of new technology and exploding information.

Today, more mediated information is available to more people than at any other time in human history. New and revitalized sense-making strategies multiply in response to the challenges of "cutting through the clutter" of competing narratives and taming the avalanche of information. Data miners, "sentiment analysts," and decision markets offer to help bodies of data "speak for themselves"—making sense of their own patterns so we don’t have to. Neuromarketers and body language experts promise to peer behind people’s words to see what their brains are really thinking and feeling. New forms of information processing promise to displace the need for expertise and even comprehension—at least for those with access to the data. Infoglut explores the connections between these wide-ranging sense-making strategies for an era of information overload and "big data," and the new forms of control they enable. Andrejevic critiques the popular embrace of deconstructive debunkery, calling into question the post-truth, post-narrative, and post-comprehension politics it underwrites, and tracing a way beyond them.

Timely advice for getting a grip on information overload in the workplace This groundbreaking book reveals how different kinds of information overload impact workers and businesses as a whole. It helps businesses get a grip on the financial and human costs of e-mail overload and interruptions and details how working in an information overloaded environment impacts employee productivity, efficiency, and morale. Explains how information?often in the form of e-mail messages, reports, news, Web sites, RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, instant messages, text messages, Twitter, and video conferencing walls?bombards and dulls our senses Explores what we do with information Documents how we created more and more information over centuries Reveals what all this information is doing Timely and thought-provoking, Overload! addresses the reality of?and solutions for?a problem to which no one is immune.

It’s hard to imagine a world where anything you could possibly want to know about – and everything you don’t even know you want to know about – isn't accessible 24-hours a day, seven days a week, with just a few taps of our fingers. But that world once existed. And Dave Gorman remembers it. He remembers when there were only three channels on TV. He remembers when mobile phones were the preserve of arrogant estate agents and yuppie twonks. And he remembers when you had to unplug your phone to plug the computer into the landline in order to use the (crippling slow) internet. Nowadays of course, the world is full of people trying to tell us things. So much so that we have taught our brains not to pay much attention. After all, click the mouse, tap the screen, flick the channel and it's on to the next thing. But Dave Gorman thinks it's time to have a closer look, to find out how much nonsense we tacitly accept. Suspicious adverts, baffling newspaper headlines, fake twitter, endless cat videos, insane TV shows where the presenters ask the same questions over and over. Can we even hear ourselves think over the rising din? Or is there just too much information?

We've all been there.One minute, you're sprawled out on your bed, minding our own business and the next you're lying in the back seat of your best friend's car as she races you to the ER. And not the closest one either. No. You're headed to the one fifty miles farther out, because the one five minutes away is where you start your residency next week.So there you are, lying in cubicle nine, hoping like hell that the doctor about to examine you isn't young, sexy or male. Of course he's all three.Telling him about the clitmaster7000 I have lodged inside me is by far the single most embarrassing moment of my life. Discovering he's my brother's new roommate is even worse.

Almost without noticing it happen, we have found ourselves shopping, communicating, playing and even worshipping online. The most profound effect of technology has been the transformation of culture. For Christians, the most important question is not “What can we do with technology?” but “What is technology doing to us?”. Andrew Graystone aims to help Christians who want to think through their own engagement in digital culture, who want to better understand how the world is changing and how they can respond. He addresses ten key questions on how digital technology is changing our lives today, including: • Who can I believe? • What forces are shaping digital culture? • How is digital technology shaping my life? • Who is my digital neighbour? • What will a digital church look like?

Although global pandemics are not a new phenomenon, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken place in a very different information environment than any pandemic before it. In today’s world, information plays a critical role in all areas of life with much of this information being delivered over the internet and social media. People have access to unprecedented amounts of information from both official and unofficial sources. While these channels are beneficial for enabling authorities to obtain information necessary to manage the pandemic, there is also a higher risk of misinformation spread. Mass Communications and the Influence of Information During Times of Crises provides a comprehensive overview of research conducted into the role of information and the media during times of international crises, particularly examining the COVID-19 pandemic. This text provides a better understanding of how to use the media as a tool for managing pandemics in the event of future global health crises. Covering topics such as crisis communication, data acquisition, and social media usage, this book is a dynamic resource for government policymakers, public health authorities, information and communications specialists, researchers, graduate and post-graduate students, professors, and academicians in a wide range of both public health and information-related disciplines.