Information Overload - Is it or Is it not?

As I was paying over the counter for Appy Fizz, I got a WhatsApp message that said,”Appy Fizz causes Cancer. Never drink it.” Oops. What do I do now?

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I have always thought that the amount of information man can store and process has remained almost constant throughout history. True, the variety of info that a man can remember today is much more than, say, 60000 years ago, but in terms of the amount of data, like in GBs, it hasn’t changed much at all. For example, a  Jaravan tribal, who has no exposure to the outside world,  can identify and differentiate more than 70 types of tubers that he has seen in his entire life of living in a 200sq.km forest while, evidently, we cannot.

                So, as the variety of information we encounter and digest increases, it leads to two distinct developments.

•      It takes a lot of effort for someone to make me notice and absorb any info

•      The info I absorb doesn’t stay in my mind for long

The first point has led to what I call the “death of superlatives.” Every video that is shared is “Best ever”, “ultimate” and “never seen before”, every quote “the greatest of the century”, every picture “the cutest” and “most beautiful”, every act “impossible” and “extraordinary”, every cricket match the “greatest ever” and so on.  This is the same reason why Arnab Goswami goes berserk on TV and politicians scream at each other. The same reason why some online news portals change the titles of the same news articles multiple times so as to be relevant on Google News. It takes so much effort to make me take notice.

The second has more interesting effects. The “best ever” TV series I watched this week is usurped by another next week and I don’t remember the “greatest IPL match” ever. This means that a marketer has to put in more effort to make me remember his product, the R&D line of automobile companies have to keep rolling out new cars because my attention span is lower  and Arnab has to report new “Extraordinary events” everyday.

This information overload has unleashed a new beast, actually an old beast in a deadlier version: false information. Whenever there is a crowd, there would be false information, miscommunication, rumours and outright lies. And internet is a big bad crowd of magnitude humanity has never dealt with before.

So, we have a FB post of a quote attributed to Lord Macaulay that says, “I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” Sorry, he never said this.

Then there is one more that quotes Putin saying something about Minorities in Russia. Sorry, false again. Gujarat and Modi is another area where there is so much wrong info floating around. Health facts are another area victimised. Appy Fizz causes cancer. No, it does not. Mentos plus coke will cause instant death. No it doesn’t. Kurkure has plastic. Seriously? Mobile phones emit 1000 times stronger signals when battery is low. Oops, wrong again. Dont drink Tea in Plastic cup. It can cause 52 types of Cancer. Bullshit.

All these information have one or more of these following characteristics

-          They make you feel good about your history, culture or heritage

-          They make you feel extreme emotions like revenge

-          They threaten your existence itself

-          They usually quote reputed sources

-          They give credence to what you want to think of, but what may not actually be true

Biased information is a different thing altogether. Varied interpretations of correct data may exist. For example, 18 degrees at Bangalore may be cold for a Chennaite but warm for a Canadian. 

But how do we identify which information is right and which is wrong, assuming we usually seek the right information? These false info and rumours may have serious consequences, like when north east Indians packed their bags from Bangalore and went back to their homes because of rumours about danger to their lives. Or like past week, in Chennai, when after a bomb blast, there were rumours of multiple bombs planted across the city.

Usually, couple of extra clicks and minutes can dispel your doubts about any info that you encounter. But it is always necessary to take any info on social media with a pinch of salt, particularly when you decide to act upon that information. So the next time I encounter a picture that shows Buddhist monks throwing dead bodies into the fire, I would do some more research and find out that they were actually cremating victims of a huge cyclone in Myanmar.