History typically gives us principles, if we’re willing to learn them. Most trends have a historic precedent, with remixes on the same themes.
But, beyond some surviving myths and archaeological finds, our Over-Information Age has very little precedent to work from.
The one condition, though, that defines our internet-empowered culture is that we’ve moved from filtering out unimportant information toward filtering out wrong information.
Institutional replacement
Sadly, most of our older institutions that once held the Beacon of Truth have decayed so badly in the face of the internet that they aren’t reliable sources of information anymore:
| Source | Old View | New View |
| Library | The primary public repository of most known information | A public repository of a curator’s preferred information |
| Friends | A primary source of guidance, support, and part of a greater community | A preferred source of support |
| Retailers | A possible source of information, community, and purchased goods | A possible source of purchased goods |
| College | A primary source of education, community, and career network | A possible source of education and career network |
| Church | A primary source of spiritual connection and network | A possible source of spiritual connection and network |
| Community | The essential group of people you don’t always agree with, but must learn to coexist alongside | The selected group of people you have chosen and built from your preferences |
In the same way that supermarkets have made food cheap and amazing at the cost of meaning, the Over-Information Age has made the information-holders merely a disposable source of knowledge alongside many others.
In this transition, community is no longer a hand-in-hand experience with information, and runs scarce as a result of it.
Cheap information
The “attention economy” demonstrates that information itself is now less valuable than it used to be. We’ve replaced the need for information with the need for understanding to process that information.
We grow sicker under the malady of information overload, but treat the deluge as if it can somehow derive meaning for us, as if the disease that causes stress for us could somehow be the cure of peace we need.
This comparatively short-lived trend isn’t enough to give us the wisdom we seek, and the Millennial and Zoomer generation’s generalized anxiety proves it’s a defective approach.
A way out
The answer lies in working better, longer, and more thoroughly with less information.
The lens of history has proved that this works across thousands of years. The difference now, though, is that we are required to say “no” more than ever before to the tidal wave of data.
The key is to gain awareness at the expense of non-perception. From that deeper understanding, we can then focus on a comparatively smaller stream of facts within the larger body of information.
And yet, to meditate more cleanly on a constrained domain is also terrifying. We don’t often realize it overtly, but can intuit that any extra understanding may provoke us to inwardly change.
But, we have to, if we want to fix what’s wrong with the internet in our lives.