“We are vessels of very limited content. Not all men can read all books; it is only in a chosen few that any man can find his appointed food.” – R L Stevenson
Modern man has become a kind of post-human with greater capabilities due to the technological tools available to him. But this technological advancement has some flipsides attached to it. Keeping pace with technological advancement is a vexing issue for all of us. The most challenging and cumbersome thing for modern man to tackle is information overload, or what Alvin Toffler in his book “Future Shock” calls ‘Infobesity’. It is a neologism, a portmanteau word blending ‘information’ and ‘obesity’, hence infobesity. Obesity as we know is the result of over-eating, likewise ‘Infobesity’ is the availability of ‘Too Much Information’ (TMI). According to Paul Rogers and et al, like conventional obesity, infobesity has many sources. The never-ending stream of emails and voicemails; the PowerPoint presentations that dominate so many meetings; the endless reports from finance, marketing, cross-functional teams and external researchers. Useful information creates opportunity and makes for better decisions. But the torrent that flows through most organisations today acts like so much bad cholesterol, clogging their arteries and slowing their reactions.
The (TMI) on any concept is quite baffling in particular for people who are in academics and pursuing research in any specific area. Availability of (TMI) on a certain topic addles the mind of a researcher and thereby creates a problem for him/her while filtering the authentic from the bogus and fabricated. In research, availability of less information or literature on any specific area of research may seem problematic and hectic for a researcher, but it is the other way round. In research, I think less is more. A statement like this sounds paradoxical. But it is pregnant with logical sense and meaning. And researchers in academia will definitely concur with me.
When a person tries to google any concept, idea or issue, Google makes available a flood of information. Coping with this flood of information makes this person indecisive and thereby lands him in a problem. The mind is obfuscated and the person becomes a victim of indecisiveness. The information one comes across through emails, social media and through other means is also very difficult to handle. This flood of information has made the modern man a kind of machine. He puts everything into his mind but in process of retaining the authentic information and stamping out the bogus, he fails. (TMI) cripples the mind of a person in deciding which information one needs and which not. Availability of (TMI) may seem a blessing for some but generally, handling the torrential load of information is a Herculean task to accomplish because we are the vessels of very limited content. Always remember, less is more in most of the situations. Thereby hangs a tale!!
“Information overload will lead to ‘future shock syndrome’ as an individual will suffer severe physical and mental disturbances.” – Alvin Toffler

The writer is a doctoral candidate at the Department of English, AMU. He has qualified UGC-NET and JKSET for Assistant Professorship in English.

Bilal Ahmad Dar