I would like to pick up where I left off and complete that thought. That might happen a lot here, so be prepared. In my last post I talked about the overwhelming amount of information available in a bookstore or a library, I didn't even mention the internet, which is information overload on steroids.
What do we do with all of this information? We can't possible take it all in. I don't care what you aunt told you about humans only using 10% of their brains, we simply aren't equipped to handle the mass amounts of information available to us. In one of my classes a teacher of mine said that the average person today learns more in a day than the person a hundred years ago learned in a month and in some cases a year. I have no sources to back up that claim, besides the fact that one of my professors at a accredited four year university said it, but I can see how it would be true.
We have to filter. It's a defense mechanism. We do it with our five senses everyday, throwing away information taken in visually and through sound and touch and smell and taste. Cool side note: Have you ever not been paying attention to what someone was saying, only to have them pause, expecting a response? What usually happens? For most people you can actually stop and think and pull back that information and look at it and then respond. That is pretty amazing when you think about it. Your brain filtered that information as unimportant (because you thought the wall behind your friends head was more important than what they were saying or whatever your excuse is) but you are actually capable of going back a short distance into all that information and taking a second look, to see if your first categorization of that information was correct and to reassign it if appropriately. End side note.
The kind of information overload and filtering I'm talking about here though is a lot more conscious. We choose at a much more aware level what we deem as valuable information and what we just take out with the day's trash. With this in mind, consider what criteria YOU use to decide if something is important or not. What are your filters? How do you decide if information is valuable or not?
TO BE CONTINUED!!!!
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