Information Psychosis

It's a term I picked up out of a Roger MacBride Allen book that was written in 1990 before half of the globe was plugged into the internet.  It's a term for people who had become overwhelmed by information, I'm sure I'm not the only person out there suffering from this?  As bloggers we get online and spend hours just gathering information that we don't even use.  We each have a list of websites that we click through like clockwork, some of us spend more time taking in information then doing anything else.  I don't even want to think about the cases Glenn Reynold's or Matt Drudge are hiding in their closet, take them away from news and they're probably basket cases. 

 

Which brings me to the point of why I'm talking about this.  Our base was cut off from the outside world for the few days because of an incident which didn't even make CNN or FOX because of the British Terror Plot.  While very important, that wasn't the only thing happening in the world yet according to their tickler and reporters that's all that was happening.   They spent three days rehashing the same words with hardly any new information, today they're covering other stories again but don't they realize that this drives more people away from them to the internet?  If they were the only source of news you might imagine that was the only news out there.  

 

After being cut off for a few days from the internet, we missed stories like the biggest Typhoon to hit China in 50 years?   Do we not care?  What's happening in Israel or Iraq?  Nope not interested.   What about that big pipeline in Alaska which supplies a good percentage of the domestic oil to the US that is going to be shut down?  Hey there was tickler spot for that!   Who decides what's important for us to see?  How many people were tired of seeing the same images of an airport, the ratty house in Britain with the guys in the bright coats, the camera zooming away from those fellows in the white robes and reporters treading off a list of things you couldn't bring on a plane.  For a news junky like me, that was just a load of crap.