Things I hate about the Web: information glut

By Todd Stadler · Wednesday, November 7, 2007 9:41pm

If all goes according to plan (and what reason do I have for assuming it will this time?), this will be the inaugural post in a series on "things I hate about the Web". I'm sure it'll be a hit with both of you out there, given that you've already shown your slavish devotion to the Web by accessing this diatribe via it. Sellout.

Anyhow, today's e-angry-old-man-yelling-out-loud-on-a-park-bench is about information. There's too dang much of it on the Web. And it annoys me. Let me tell you kids about it.

See, time was there wasn't much you could read on the Web. Why, in those days, you could become famous by throwing up (in more than one sense) a quickly designed Web site conceived as a way to procrastinate based in part on something you once read in a magazine ... and get famous for it! Because, you see there wasn't much else to read at the time.

But pretty soon, they started putting useful (or at least interesting) information on the Web, and things were good, for a time. But they didn't stop there — no, they kept putting more information on the Web. And more and more! Why, some of it was even trivial!

An an example, take blogs. Time was, no one had a blog. Not even the President! Then a few of my buddies got them, and I would sporadically remember to read them when they sporadically remembered to write something. And it was all pretty good. Then more and more buddies, and even some pals, started sporadically writing in blogs, and I'd forget to read them for weeks or months after they'd posted something. But that made me cranky.

So I broke down and looked into this new-fangled RSS technology that everyone had been talking about. After a while, I settled on Google Reader as a way to read all my friends' blogs' RSS feeds. And there was peace and calm once again.

But then they started slapping those durn RSS icons everywhere — you couldn't swing a cordless mouse without hitting someone's RSS feed! And, like a fool, I added 'em all to my feed reader. I had feeds from all my friends' blogs, their Flickr photos, local news sources, and even some humorous comic strips!

I had all sorts of information to read, but the thing was, I had less and less time in which to read it. Now, think about that!

But it wasn't just the RSS feeds. Everyone and his horse started microblogging on Twitter, yappin' away about their doings, transpirings, and whatnot. More information! And they posted more whatnot on their Facebook and the what-have-you. To say nothing of the actual news of the day one might be inclined to read about.

Well, it's gotten so a man can't take it no more! It's too much! Am I supposed to mark swaths of unread blog feeds as read in my feed reader? But what if there's a useful article somewhere in there? Or a comment discussion I want to contribute to? And how's a fellow supposed to comment in peace when you keep Twittering at him?

As such, I hereby ask all y'all to stop saying so much on the Internet. Just keep it to the essentials. Allow me to catch up, at least. Thanks.