How might one deal with information addiction?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello, my name is gitfiddle, and I have a problem. I am addicted to information. I have dozens of site feeds in my google reader that I read every day, I use a diigo account to highlight and categorize ever single interesting thing I read so that I can pull it up again later. I get newsletters about everything from foreign policy and media factchecking to science research and education reform.

I got a little ipod shuffle a while back, and I now subscribe to dozens of podcasts and have taken to listening constantly to them whenever I can.

I have a passion for learning, which is not bad, but the fact that there is so much out there to learn, read, watch, etc. has gotten to the point where I am constantly having to tend to my crop of newly blossoming statistics and insightful analysis.

I’ve started doing some things to curb this. A while back I drastically reduced the number of feeds I subscribe to, but I’m still shuffling through and reading about 500 articles a day. I’ve also started trying to use a nudge, saying that I can’t look at my reader until there are 50 new articles. That way, I get work done, and I reward myself with a hit of info.

(As sad and lonely as this all sounds, I assure you all that I still have a life, friends, and a happy marriage. Just had to get that in there.)

This is a problem in and of itself, but I am also troubled by some recent studies and articles (like this) I’ve been reading about psychology and facts, essentially that you can give people all the facts you want about a certain subject, they still might become even more convinced of what they already believed. I am someone who really wants to engage in a meaningful way with people with whom I disagree, which is why I want to be well-informed, but it seems that knowing every detail of both sides of many debates might not be that important.

Anyhow, I’m wondering if other people have this problem of wanting to gobble up every interesting thing out there all the time, and how you deal with it. I figured SDMB would be the best place to find people with the same problem.

2

Yeah, my name is dangermom, and I’m a librarian…you can guess where this is going.

Every so often I go through my blog feeds and prune the list down to size. I’m about to drastically curtail my rec time online–I’m going to start a job soon and will not have the same kind of time at home, so I’m practicing! I’m going to quit a couple of minor message boards and so on.

But for me, the major thing I try to do is practice concentrating on one thing deeply. I find myself skipping around all the time, and I figure it’s bad for my concentration and my ability to actually think. Bouncing from blog to news feed to MB is not thinking. So I’ll get a book which has thought and a complex argument and I’ll sit down and read it. Being a mom sort of fights against this too (I found out it’s hard to read Austrian economics during your kids’ kung-fu class :p).

3

Posting a question on a discussion board is probably the wrong start.

4

This is an addiction? I thought it was life!

I don’t really do it via sites, but I’m always trying to find a new niche or topic to learn more about, whether it’s online or through books.

I guess if you do it to the degree where you don’t have time to work or do otherwise productive things, then it’s bad. Though it doesn’t sound like you’re quite at that level. You seem to have a healthy passion.

5

I think it will require a lot of internet research in order for you to find a definitive answer.

6

I’d tell you, but it would be counterproductive.