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We Actively Avoid Information That Can Help Us
The way we interact with new information
- A study found that when people feel they won't be able to act on the information being offered, they are more likely to reject it.
- People that are more accepting of risk and those who focus on the future are more likely to seek information.
- Men are slightly more information seeking than women.
- People who are more curious tend to want information more frequently.
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Key Ideas
Avoiding Facts
Many people avoid facts even if it is beneficial for them to know. This strange quirk that defies logic is due to many psychological factors.
Human beings often avoid learning new i...
Aversion From Bad News
Human beings feel their hopes are shattered when they learn about the outcome of a certain illness or maybe the date of their death, or divorce, preferring to remain aloof and hopeful.
While mostly this applies only to bad news, there are certain cases when individuals prefer not to know about something which may be positive as well.
The Reason For Avoiding Facts
Information avoidance, even if knowing can help us make smarter choices, is a way for us to forego some of the sufferings that may be caused by us knowing about what the future brings, and allows us to remain in a state of suspense and wonder.
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Key Ideas
Bottomless visual
The world in the 21st century is the same it used to be. It smells about the same, sound pollution is pretty stable. But the spill of information and distraction that comes to our vision has grown ...
Information overload
- Information overload was a term coined in the mid-1960s by Bertram Gross, a social scientist.
- In 1970, writer Alvin Toffler popularized the idea of information overload as part of a set of predictions about eventual dependence on technology.
- Another set of academics wrote that information overload occurs when the amount of input exceeds its processing capacity.
- A 2011 study found that on a typical day, Americans were taking in five times as much information as they had done 15 years earlier.
- A 2019 study identified that our attention span is shrinking, probably because of digital overload.
Technology pushed too much
It is probably too late to restore our attention span to that of our grandparents. After a decade of smartphone use and social media, the harm is perhaps irreversible.
Part of the problem in this age of overload is the constant insistence of notifications that seeks our immediate attention. When the body jumps to attention and for nothing of particular worth, it can be confusing.