The Rate of Change And Information Overload

The rate of change (novelty index) is increasing so rapidly that it interferes with our ability to function optimally. Stress, due to over-stimulation, interferes with our mind’s ability to process information, saps our emotional energy, and results in unhealthy coping behaviour such as smoking, alcohol abuse and other unhealthy life style adaptations.

Modern society overloads our minds with information leading to what psychologists call cognitive overload. Right now, you’re probably besieged by all kinds of information that’s competing for your time and attention – whether you realise it or not. For example: do you have any control over the junk mail that jams your e-mail inbox or post box?

At the highpoint of the Industrial age (19th to mid-20th century) people did not have to go through a series of motions, read manuals or become experts at a task. Technical expertise was only needed by the people who built the machines and other technologies. Users could live in blissful ignorance. Consider, for example, turning on the lights in your room. Electrical lighting is one of the hallmark inventions of the Industrial Age. To use it, you simply need to know how to flip a switch. To start your car, you turn the key. These are the industrial-age processes at their best. You don’t have to become an electrical engineer or a physicist to function effectively.

However, to function in the Information Age (the time that we are presently in transit through), you need first to gather information you need, go online or open a manual, make several calls, search the yellow pages to find and consult experts etc. The following examples should serve to drive the point home: Purchasing a DVD or DSTV is certainly not difficult but it is certainly not easy to install! New computer software, digital cameras and cell phones are vastly more complex than their counterparts fifty years ago!