INFORMATION OVERLOAD ?.

Is it information overload or just senior moments :th_scifD36: . is it we are collecting too much information via computers
tv, e mails, mobile phones etc etc . have you found yourself forgetting peoples names etc that you have known for years ?.i met an old work colleague lately who worked beside me for years, and i could not remember his name . spoke to him for 5 mins then his name came to mind. an instance happened to me a few days ago
( or was it a few weeks ago) :D . i went to the hole in the wall cash machine ,put my card in ,blah blah blah.
the card and the cash came out, i picked up my card put it safely in my pocket,turned to walk away, then i realised i had not picked up my cash :DOH::DOH:. fortunately for me there was nobody around .


i never told the wife ( i forgot):DOH:.

 

I know exactly what you mean, I just put it down to senior moments, the other day I was driving along and literally forgot where I was supposed to be going!!!! I just carried on until I remembered I just hope it doesn't get any worse. you will see on the 10.o'clock news that a woman was seen wandering aimlessly down the M25 muttering to herself about gardening!!!!

Val
[hr]
I would actually like to move into a bungalow as I am fed up with going upstairs and forgetting what I went up there for!!!! dear oh dear!!!

Val

 

Oh, just invented a new snack, sultanas & dried onions.

Does that count ?

 

No, its a recognised thing. When I first joined my last company over 10 years ago, they made us go on a team building course, which was also about getting the most out of ourselves too.

The company that ran it is very big in the USA, and has a strong presence here too. They referred to 'future shock', the idea that depression and other mental ailments are more common nowadays because our brains are expected to do too much.

They pointed out that the volume and complexity of information we are expected to process each day is increasing much faster than evolution can modify our brains. In effect, trying to put abstract and highly complex facts into a brain that has hardly evolved since our caveman days.

They give an example of a typical commute to work. 100 years ago you'd travel a couple of miles on quiet roads at low speed (walking or pushbike). Nowadays the typical commute is 45 minutes at 70mph in two or three lanes of traffic, with all sorts going on, and signs and road markings everyone, and a whole range of instruments to monitor. A fairly simplistic example but I think it demonstrates the point quite well.

 

Definitely info. overload.:WINK1: It happens to me but it can't be a senior moment, I'm the '60's generation and we don't get old.

 

There is definately way too much information being thrust upon us nowadays. Technology is moving at such a breakneck speed it is scarey and I for one do not like it at all. The human brain is only capable of absorbing so much information at a time.

I am not being a grumpy old man, (Well I am but you know what I mean), when I constantly think back to when I was 18 and younger than that even. The computers available were the size of a house. There was no www, broadband, mobile phones, flat screen TV, M25. You only saw a dishwasher in a pub or restaurant. Life was simpler. Now you are regarded as prehistoric if you do not have internet access or a mobile phone.

Motorbikes used to run on points and condensor, you could always bend or bash them into shape to get you home. Nowadays it is all little black boxes that are sealed and unless you have the right computer and all the wires to hook up to the bike you cannot tell what is wrong or fix it on the side of the road.

The internet is a wonderful thing, if only it was used for what it was intended. Trouble is that it used to gther masses of information and force feed you masses of junk you do not understand or want.

Chopper.

 

I agree with Shiney. I went to post here but he'd beaten me to it.

Our brain has an automatic filter, which instantly sorts info into useful (I must remember that!) and dross (No need to remember that!) as we go through the day.

I think that compartment is in Section A, filing drawer No. 3. :D

 

I'm not sure I agree, while we do certainly consciously sort what's important and what's not, on a subconscious level our brains still have to work to do that, and while hurtling down your local dual carriageway at rush hour you might be daydreaming away and just doing things automatically, the evidence that our minds are still working flat out becomes all too apparent when someone cuts in front of you without warning and you suddenly have a split second to jam the anchors on, check what else is going on around you, decide what sort of evasive action will give the best chance of keeping everyone out of harm, etc.

 

I agree with this. I don't think we are as good at filtering out unwanted knowledge as perhaps we would like to be, I think we take it all on board and then our brain struggles to make sense of it. How much has anxiety/depression - at being unable to cope/heart attacks/strokes/insomnia risen in the last 100 years?!?!!! people strive to "get away from it all" and live a simpler life.

Val

 

I'm convinced my brain is full. If I manage to remember something new something else falls out of it.
I'm terrible at names now though at one time I'd be able to name 250 kids in my school. A couple of decades ago I could pick up foreign languages easily, but now unless I constantly revise I forget. These problems though are all due to the ageing process. I still remember French I learned at school, German and Italian from holidays in my teens and 20s but remembering Greek that I took up five or six years ago is another matter!
There is though also an information overload factor at work generally in society as information and its availability is growing exponentially. The important thing now is not so much how much you know, but knowing how and where to find what you want to know. (and if you use the internet being able to evaluate the validity of the info.)

Now why did I start on this? What site is this anyway?