How Much Is Too Much?

An easy answer is usually not readily available when someone asks: "How much is too much?"

When it comes to things that are known to be bad - smoking cigarettes, for example - we tend to say that one (cigarette) is already too much (which is probably true). When it comes to things that are good - e.g. eating good and healthy food - things get a little more complicated. How are we supposed to know when to stop eating because our bodies can no longer deal efficiently (there's probably a more scientific way of saying that, but you know what I mean :-)) with the amount of food we're putting into it?

Nevertheless, the question of "how much is too much" really becomes interesting the moment we start talking about something that is apparently neutral, i.e. neither good nor bad in and of itself: information.

Neil Postman, a well-known technology critic of our time, addresses this issue at the beginning of his article entitled Science and the Story that We Need (first published in First Things Magazine in 1997). He notes how the world was "remade through technoloy" in a single century (the 19th), giving us access to a quantity of information that humankind had never seen before. With the help of telegraphy, photography, the telephone, the typewriter, the radio and other inventions, information could now travel faster than thirty-five miles per hour  (which was the maximum speed a person could achieve when traveling by train). No doubt an amazing achievement for human beings, but not necessarily a reason to rejoice, if you're willing to agree with Postman:

"We may congratulate ourselves on our achievement, but we have been rather slow in recognizing that in solving the information problem, we created a new problem never experienced before: information glut, incoherence, and meaninglessness. From millions of sources all over the globe, through every possible channel and medium - lightwaves, airwaves, tickertapes, computer banks, telephone wires, television cables, satellites, printing presses - information pours in. [...] Where information was once an essential resource in helping us to gain control over our physical and symbolic worlds, our technological ingenuity transformed information into a form of garbage, and ourselves into garbage collectors."

Strong words coming from a man who died just one year before Facebook was invented, probably the prime example of information being transformed into a form of garbage (Disclaimer: Obviously not all information shared on Facebook can be classified as garbage and it usually depends on who is sharing it, but the percentage does seem rather high when compared to other information-sharing media). Yet the main problem does not seem to be the amount (which is probably too much) or even the quality (which is oftentimes not what it should be) of the information we are confronted with on a daily basis, but more so its purpose. Here's Postman again:

"The tie between information and human purpose has been severed. Information is now a commodity that is bought and sold; it comes indiscriminately, whether asked for or not, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume, at high speeds, disconnected from meaning and import. It comes unquestioned and uncombined [...] No stories to tell us what we need to know, and especially what we do not need to know." (bold emphasis mine)

So how much information is too much? I would probably say that it depends on how much time you're spending "accumulating" it and what you could be (or maybe even should be) doing instead. There are some things we really do not need to know! Having knowledge and information is nice, but next time you're tempted to look at your friend's cousin's mom's pictures of her 60th birthday party, you might just want to ask yourself: "Does looking at these pictures serve any purpose at all?"