Pedagogical Problems of Media – case of information overload

Information, Revolution, Pollution

What is driving “progress” forward? Technology. What is the most “hard-working” technology of our times? Information technology. What is the side-effect of this “hard work”? Information smog.

Information technology is revolutionizing our lives on regular basis. As revolutions tend to be burdened with “paradoxes”, the information one has also brought some. Let’s consider two results of IT: access to information (which has been made truly immediate), and amount of information (which has been made truly “laaaarge”).  Immediate access to information makes us (somehow) have less time, although, by definition, time-saving technologies should provide us with more time. Loads of available information  make us (somehow) know less, although loads would rather connote multiplication. As a result of these results some tend to be confused, some tend to be overwhelmed, some just do not care, and some seem to manage quite well. Every change in cultural ecosystem (and particularly in the domain of symbolic universum) triggers implications of educational nature. Information overload creates a change that belongs to the category of disturbances. Can we qualify it as a pedagogical problem of media? Well, the term disturbance smells “problematic” so we may assume the presence of some potential for generating (also) pedagogical problems (though problems happen to be “constructive”). Of course, again, it’s only up to us (read: our media literacy) whether infosphere will be providing us with utopic or dystopic contexts. Recommended reading: Tyranny of the Moment. Fast and Slow Time in Information Age, by Thomas Hylland Eriksen.