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Signal vs Noise in the Attention Economy

Categories: MicroMedia, Social Media, User Experience, Web TheoryPosted on August 10th, 2007

There’s more and more content being produced, as every human with internet access and limited know-how can be a media platform. This results in those who want their messages heard to yell louder or intrude farther. Everyone wants to be heard, resulting what appears to be noise, with very little signal.

Steve Rubel suggests that we’ve hit an inflection point, resulting in ‘bankruptcy’

“We are reaching a point where the number of inputs we have as individuals is beginning to exceed what we are capable as humans of managing. The demands for our attention are becoming so great, and the problem so widespread, that it will cause people to crash and curtail these drains. Human attention does not obey Moore’s Law.”

It’s arguable that information is now segmenting down the tail of unique and specific interests. No more are the days of ‘mass’ media and majority popularity in content. I embrace the very specific interests and details of small loosely joined individuals making up niche communities. The right content is available for everyone, it segments.

Shel Holtz suggests that there’s NO attention crash,

“If you don’t care about it, it’s crap to you, even though it might be gold to me. The point is this: There really is no such thing as information overload, as long as the information is content that is useful to you. We can’t get enough information about the stuff we care about.”


[Our media interests are starting to fragment and specialize, as a result, content outside our preference area will appear to be useless noise]

I’m going to suggest that Shel has some valid points, there’s always been too much information for all humans, even before the birth of modern media. Humans will continue to prioritize their content sources in order to fill the voids in entertainment, knowledge, or other.

Content is getting smaller/faster humans are getting ready to consume more ‘bits’ of chunky information, hence the coinage of the term MicroMedia. I’ve observed Scoble scanning his feedreader, he ‘imprints’ a post to his mind, much faster than skimming or reading text. Read more, learn from Wikipedia: The Attention Economy

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 6:24 am and is filed under MicroMedia, Social Media, User Experience, Web Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments
  • I like the way you have synthesized these points. Yes, we do seem to have many many sources of information competing for our attention. I find myself increasingly relying on particular bloggers (like YOU and Shel and Rubel)and podcasters(Shel in particular) to filter information for me. I would rather read 20 smart blogs than 100 raw feeds of information that may or may not be of interest to me. Is this a lazy approach? I'm not sure what else to do when there are only so many hours in a day, and client work must come first.
  • Donna Thank you, I'm glad to help filter info for you

    Also consider subscribing to Robert Scoble's Shared feed.
  • Hi Jeremiah,

    I think the main thing people have to do is decide which information points are important to them (I do think we're hitting information overload to some degree, as too much information can also lead to a decrease in real productivity).

    For me:
    I use Facebook.
    I use LinkedIn.
    I use/read blogs.
    I don't use Pownce.
    I don't use Twitter (largely due to the noise ratio I've witnessed; some folks dominate the total number of tweets placed).
    I rarely use AIM of any sort.

    I think the real danger is that there's the issue of quality of content vs. quantity of content.
  • The perceptual degree of information overload is relative to the individual. I suppose many individuals, including myself, have entertained the availability of such customized info sources with much enthusiasm. Productivity losses may occur, and reading itself may have become less pleasurable if more time is spent scanning for interesting topics.
    Let's also ask ourselves importantly, how much is the individual retaining? What is of value v. 'nice-to-know' v. novel? Is that for personal or career benefit?

    Man is responsible for his own actions. Discipline is his sword and belt. Values are his drivers.
  • Shel is missing one critical point that Steve addresses. There are starting to be far too many inputs for information. Within one of my hobbies, gaming, which is a small niche hobby I have 30+ podcasts in my podcatcher. And that's just for gaming. That does not include my other interests (of which I have several) or the podcasts I should listen to for work. Or the blogs I need to read. Or the white papers or video blogs or sleep.

    What Shel seems to miss is that information overload is more than just "I care about this, so it's gold, I don't care about that it's crap." I am being forced to make decisions within the gold as to where I am going to devote my time. And this decision comes with it an opportunity cost and, in some cases, guilt. That, ultimately, may lead to me shutting down as the opportunity cost and cognitive dissonance becomes so great I would rather not deal with the inputs at all.
  • Attachment and continuous thirst create suffering.
    If it's not valuable to work, then seriously consider chopping it unless it's a serious hobby or interest. Family and personal health are more important than all else. If there's something you want to expand your knowledge in, you don't have to feel upset that you don't have time to learn. Instead, prioritize what specialty subject/field is more important for you to learn now, and then place the additional subjects in a time slot for the future. Secondly, seek out people who are specialists/mavens in the fields you find of strategic importance for your career, or personal interest...then approach them when their knowledge/assistance is of timely importance to you. This is all basic stuff, but nonetheless we all can forget about...and occasionally need to remind ourselves of.
  • unfortunately we are still being "jammed" by the mainstream media.
    I constantly have to adjust my "gain control" so that I can demodulate "my" signal.
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