Reading / Research

Information overload, or filter failure?

There is no such thing as information overload.  If you’re overwhelmed by what you’ve got to read/consume, you have probably chosen to feel that pain.

The choice may not be intentional, but I doubt someone else is forcing you to consume too much information.  Even the compulsory reads on your reading lists shouldn’t be too much, even if it seems that way at the time.

[Note: Speed reading could help.  A quick search on Google brings loads of results.  At time of writing, the most recent speed reading piece I’ve seen is from Tim Ferriss.  To try getting a speed boost, give it a go.]

Imagine you see the Top 10 bestselling non-fiction books in a store.  Have you read all of them?  It’s unlikely.  Do you intend to?  I doubt it.

What you’ve done here is created a filter.  You have chosen to miss out on some reading material.  Even if you had the money, the chances of someone buying all the books and reading each of them are slim.  I’m sure you’d probably take something useful away from many books you’ve not read, but you can’t read every last thing that’s ever been written.  Even a fraction of one percent would be difficult to get through.  There’s just too much out there!

photo by B Tal

photo by B Tal

Your life is full of choices.  The data you wish to consume depends on how you choose to consume.  Some people, even uni students, claim never to read books unless they are practically forced to for an essay or exam.  Others can’t stop reading certain types of novels.  Others spend all day reading Facebook updates and blog posts.  It’s all a choice.

‘Information Overload’ occurs when you choose to consume too much.  It also happens when there’s such a backlog of reading that it’s too difficult to catch up with.  You then have to make another choice…do you give up something else in order to catch up, or do you discard some of the older material in order to lighten the load?

You’re likely to lose out if you take on too much.  When the ‘Information Overload’ feels like it’s about to strike, the simple choice is to get rid of a portion of what’s bringing you down.  Failing that, skim for the main points only and move on as quickly as possible.

It’s difficult to stop engaging with information that you’re used to reading.  It’s difficult to stop reading/watching the news if you’re used to that.  It’s difficult to stop consuming anything you have grown accustomed to.  That is why filtering is not easy, but always possible.  And not only is it a relief, it’s also surprising how little it matters once you’ve stopped.

One of my personal mottos is “Know when to stop”.  I find it important to read a lot.  It feels right in my personal circumstances and I use it to my advantage.  Once I start to find things tough, I step back and discard what I can do without. As I say, not always easy, but definitely possible.  The more I have practised this, the easier it has become to cut back and move on.

Sure, some of my choices may end up being mistakes.  Nobody’s perfect.  But it’s unusual to find a situation where you can’t rectify those mistakes and get back to the position you want to be.

Steve Pavlina has written about networking with busy people.  It’s worth reading what he has to say in relation to information overload, because he could have crashed and burned with the amount of communication he was getting.  As his site grew, so did the number of people contacting him.  Rather than continue responding to every single person, Steve decided to filter differently in order to cope.  He says, “I don’t have the capacity to accept deeper connections with everyone who wants to build a bridge with me, so I have to be selective”.

I’m sure he didn’t want to stop talking to each and every person, but there comes a time when it’s not possible to keep going.  When no choice is made to change the filter, that’s when the choice is made for you and ‘information overload’ occurs.

While some people insist on swimming further out to sea until they’re helplessly swept away, I’ll make do with paddling.  Maybe, just maybe, I’ll take a short swim in slightly deeper waters, but I want to be sure I can get back to safety pretty quickly.

I don’t see that as weak.  I simply want to be able to make the choice myself.  It’s important to be in control of those filters and use them wisely.

How easy do you find filtering your information in-tray?  If you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you.

Immediacy, choice and free will

I’ve been thinking.

Consider this:

“What if culture is not the liberator of individual free will, but another jailer?” [Jamie Tehrani & Robert Layton]

Photo by Fernando Silveria

Photo by Fernando Silveria

Consider this:

“…people actually put a disproportionately high value on things they can have right now, and if they cannot have them now the length of the delay matters relatively little.  If something is delayed by a few minutes we might devalue it by perhaps 10 per cent, while if it is delayed by two years we devalue it by 12 per cent.” [Daniel Read]

Photo by Xindaan

Photo by Xindaan

Consider this:

“The most decisive actions of our life…are most often unconsidered actions.” [André Gide]

Photo by frankh

Photo by frankh

Has immediacy and never-ending choice taken away some of our freedom?

Textbooks: How do you get around the issue of cost?

Reading lists come and go, but the books you buy are likely to stay with you for a while.

Some of the books I bought in my first year are still mine and I’m glad I was told to buy them.  Other books seemed a waste of time and money.  Another set of books served a purpose, but didn’t need to be kept after their initial use.

photo by marzbars

photo by marzbars

Academic books often cost a lot more than a brand new work of fiction in hardback.  Worse, they are almost never discounted like the fiction books.  But we still need them to get through our studies.

One alternative option is to grab a downloaded version of the textbook you need.  A lot of these publications cost almost as much as the physical product anyway, so what’s the point in saving a pint’s worth of month when you were hoping for enough to afford a bottle of fine malt whisky?  Perhaps electronic book publishing needs a new approach.

There is a growing culture of downloading electronic versions of textbooks illegally for free, but even that doesn’t impress many students to the point of satisfaction.  It isn’t great working from a computer screen and electronic books aren’t easy to browse in the same way a hard copy is.

Given the choice, many students still want a physical book in their hands.  No matter how much reading material I find online, the greatest satisfaction is through a product I can actually flick through.  @seawolf and @amy_runner agreed when I asked on Twitter how students prefer to work…from traditional textbooks and face-to-face lectures, or from electronic resources and virtual seminars:

seawolf – “Real always.  Paper and face-to-face.”

amy_runner – “I prefer traditional textbooks and face-face lectures, easier to read and more interaction makes it more engaging.”

Manchester Metropolitan University’s Institute of Education also discovered that teenagers prefer traditional teaching methods, which includes using physical textbooks, rather than electronic alternatives.  It seems that while we love making use of technology, there is a tendency to go back to basics when studying.  Technology complements traditional methods of learning, it doesn’t replace it.

So what can you do to get the actual textbook without having to spend big time?

  1. Buy secondhand – You don’t have to buy new.  There is a lot of choice on sites like Amazon and abebooks.  There are others, but these two sites have generally found me what I need.
  2. Use other students – Speak to people in the year above who may have finished with certain textbooks and offer to buy them cheaply.  If you don’t need to own the book, ask to borrow it until the end of the module or academic year…you never know!
  3. Ask for a discount – As a student, your NUS Extra card can help you find discounts at some bookshops.  Even when you’ve got a definite discount like this, there’s no harm in asking for an extra discount.  Some shops are able to offer more money off when you ask, and you haven’t lost anything if they say ‘no’.  Worth a go.  Remember to smile sweetly…
  4. To the library – When you don’t need to keep your own copy of a book, see if the library holds a copy.  Best do this early on, before all copies of the book get taken out.  If it’s a very popular title, see how long you can keep the book.  If it’s only going to be in your hands for a week, but your module lasts a term, you clearly need a different plan!
  5. Try local libraries –  It might be a long shot in some cases, but you never know what a local library can do if you don’t try.  Most local libraries have stock searches on the web, so you can see if they have a copy without even leaving your seat.
  6. Consider an old edition of the textbook – If you don’t need the most up to date edition (unfortunately, sometimes you do), then you can save money by opting for the previous edition.  There’s more chance that book will be available secondhand too (see No. 1).

Other than this, how do we get around the issue of cost?  Not easily, is the unfortunate answer.  I don’t dare think how much money I had to spend on books at uni.  Too much is all I know.  And I didn’t even have it bad. None of my books were more than about £40.  I know people who had to spend more than £100 on a single tome!

If you’ve managed to get a physical textbook at a great discount (or even free), help us out with your tips in the comments.  You could make some skint students happy!

photo by Wesley Fryer

photo by Wesley Fryer

Stop so you can start…

Even if newspapers, magazines and the Internet didn’t exist, you’d still have a job keeping up with reading all the books out there.  In your entire life, you’ll read fewer books than the number of books that get published this year alone.

Point is, you can never grab all the information out there and you can never be 100% prepared for a new venture.  Whether it’s an essay or an entire change of lifestyle, you can’t hope to have access to absolutely everything written on the subject.

Set a limit on your research.  Don’t blindly reach out forever, otherwise you’ll never start the actual work.  Reading all your life won’t write your essays for you, so there must be a time to move on.

Photo by Compound Eye

Photo by Compound Eye