Information Overload

All of this happens in one minute:

• YouTube users upload 48 hours of video,
• Facebook users share 684,478 pieces of content,
• Instagram users share 3,600 new photos, and
• Tumblr sees 27,778 new posts published.

Source: www.thedinfographics.com/

So many people with so much to say. Or do they? I guess if you asked the person who is posting online content, they would argue what they have to say is worthwhile. But if I had to stay on top of all this new information, well I'd go crazy.

I make judgements all day about what is important, what I need to take seriously, what I need to pay attention to and conversely what I can delete from memory, what I can ignore, etc. What am I asking myself in the process - I think it's basically; what has value to me? I compare and contrast products to make informed purchasing decisions, by assigning value to what I like. When driving down the road I make judgements about when to brake, when to turn the wheel, where to position the car, and so on.

We can make judgements about products (made by people), we can judge information in the media (made by people), we can even judge cultures (made by people). Interesting then that we are constantly being told not to judge people? Is it really that everyone's thoughts and actions have equal merit? Well of course not, otherwise we'd let children experiment with power points in the kitchen.

Every decision we make is inherently value laden, no more so than when making moral judgements. Do I want to listen to your opinion? Do I value your point of view? Do I want to be friends with you? As human beings we are entitled to make our own decisions and live by the consequences. Shock - horror, this might mean that someone else disagrees with our judgement. "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

So what's my point, we judge things, events, information and people. But condemnation - well Jesus said it best; "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7


Let's Drive,
ren0vator