TMI (Too Much Information)

I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Honestly, who can blame me? Everywhere I turn, I am bombarded with information. TMI everywhere! Online, digital, whatever name you give it.

And why, I wonder, do I gravitate towards this information myself? I subscribe to newsletters, I join forums, I say ‘yes’ to notifications. And when these arrive in my mailbox, I frown at them.

But wait! But this is not just me. This is a trend!

I see people on Twitter following a 100 or more accounts.

I can’t even keep up with the twenty something accounts that I follow. Luckily, most of my friends don’t tweet every time they burp. Thank god for small mercies.

I just sit at my computer and I receive a hundred emails on subjects spanning the length and breadth of our planet – sometimes about outer space too.

Seriously, am I interested?

And I generate information myself too – painfully aware that each character I type takes up space on some server somewhere, whether someone reads it or not.
I feel I am slowly getting obsessed with online information and its irritant quality. I never have this feeling about books. Probably because I have a choice - I can decide to not open a book. But can I ignore an email that says ‘must read!’, ‘amazing facts about blah blah’, ’10 best things about blah’? My internal filter seems to be failing. I can’t decide what to read and what to give a miss anymore.

What am I interested in? Art? Cinema? Books? UX? What do I like? Chaat? Cake? Pasta? Choosing is so difficult when you have so many choices. When someone offers me vanilla and chocolate ice-creams and says, ‘pick any one’, I can quickly decide which one I want. But when I go to Baskin Robins, I stare at the menu for 10 minutes, decide on something, peek at other tables while eating it, and feel that the others are probably eating a better flavor.

I feel attacked and bombarded with TMI. I am over-stimulated and overwhelmed all the time. Sometimes I try ‘blocking’ or ‘not paying attention’ to save myself from a burnout. I scan, skim, or plain ignore.

So if you want to tell me something, please tell it to me. Don’t point me to a website with a 1000-word article. I don’t have the energy.

And I am sleep deprived. I need an opiate. And a soft bed. And a soft blanket. And a padded cell, maybe.