"Data Smog" after 10 years.

I read "Data Smog" by David Shenk shortly after it came out in 1998. I found it to be extremely valuable and think it is worth a read now to those who haven't read it. I distinctly remember the idea that arguments and debates may have less of a tendency to be resolved and the debate and argument itself become ever more sustained as a focus. This is not a good thing. It is wise to make efforts to avoid this tendency as we end up in an integrity compromising complacency that accepts ever greater violence as the norm. I know we'll never end debate but I think it would be wise to adopt ways and means that facilitate as much consensus as possible. That means raising our collective consciousnesses in the only nonviolent manner possible, through informing.

I just ran across an article by Mr. Shenk that he wrote in July of this year http://www.slate.com/id/2171128/ . I find it to be very interesting to see how he critiques the failures of his book and underscores the proven.

David Shenk:

Rereading the book 10 years later has been gratifying and humbling. A number of its ideas are, I think, more relevant than ever, while other passages come off as exaggerated or shortsighted. The premise still holds, and thankfully no longer requires much convincing: In our work, home, and social lives, we are saturated with data and stimulus. While our grandparents were limited by access to information and speed of communication, we are restricted largely by our ability to wade through it all. As with calories, we must work constantly to whittle down, prioritize, and pick out the choice nutritional bits. If we don't monitor our information diets carefully, our cerebral lives quickly become bloated. Attention gets diverted (sometimes dangerously so); conversations and trains-of-thought interrupted; skepticism short-circuited; stillness and silence all but eliminated. Probably the greatest overall threat is that so many potentially meaningful experiences can easily be supplanted by merely thrilling experiences.