The trouble with too much information

TL;DR; Take everything with a pinch of salt.

We live in the information era. Not that it would be any news. The trouble is that there is quite a lot of good information. However, it’s balanced out with a truckload of poop. Hence you can find endless information about anything you can think of and I’m helping with adding more “content” with this blog.

As an example. Do you want to be a vegan? Well, there is an infinite* amount of information on why being a carnivore is bad. Problem is that you’ll find the same amount of information the other way around.

“So what do I do?” Good question my faithful, nonexistent, reader. You put your trust in your uncle Ales. Just joking. But here lies the fundamental problem.

All information is said, written or shown in a context and in most cases, the context is not always visible. If you read this you won’t know what I’m thinking, how I got here, what do we have in common or even who pays me for it (HAHAHA). And if you don’t understand the context, you might misread the information or, to tie it back to the topic of the blog, build unrealistic expectation without realising it.

Let’s look at a comical example. Exercise at home videos became popular, especially during coronavirus pandemic. You’ll find all sort of content, but in coronavirus times what seemed to be trendy were kettlebell exercises. Part of us might be thinking “Hmm if I will follow this person advice I might look like them one day”, whilst the person’s context is “I’ve been exercising since I was 13 on average 4 hours a day. I’ve had a personal trainer and nutrition specialist for the last 5 years and I do 2 days of water fast to look good here. And because I never do these exercises and I took way too low weight I don’t care about my form.”.

The more we learn about a topic, the more aware we are of the “subtle” context and of what is not being said.

In most cases, we want the right information at the right moment. But we don’t know what the right information is and in most cases “now” is not the right moment. And having the wrong information in the wrong time is a bit of a bear’s service.

*infinite in this context is “processable by a human being, like you, in your lifetime”. Disclaimer: it might not apply to you if you are not a human.