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12/26/2001 Entry: "26-Dec-2001 -- Fad vs. Intrinsic Property"

'This late in history,' what shall we choose to read? -- " But at some point along the path to discovery, the reader confronts his or her reading mortality. There's only so much time. And there are so many great books. And every year more books are published, some of which will be great. Reluctantly, the reader begins to acknowledge the appalling necessity of choosing to read certain good things and not other good things."

Replies: 5 comments

Information overload...

I've started to notice that my pile of books is growing faster than I would like. I'm seriously behind, no matter how much I read. I have been implicitly prioritizing the pile based on need (e.g., business), not pleasure (e.g., sci-fi). That's unfortunate, because I love to read.

Posted by John S. Rhodes @ 12/26/2001 07:35 PM EST

Hey, join the club, buddy.

I love to read too, and I now have at least 5 books waiting to be read. In fact, I haven't read any fiction for about a year :(

Posted by MadMan @ 12/27/2001 02:13 PM EST

I doubt that this overload is restricted only to books. In fact, it is my assumption that North America is suffering from an entertainment overload. Too many movies to see, too many books to read, too many channels.

Driving the entertainment industry are advertisers bombarding viewers (read "consumers") with products. Consequently, we're seeing a misalignment of social values. Success is too heavily tied with material gain. Children beat each other up for Pokemon, and misguided welfare recipients would rather use their food stamps to buy a stereo if they had the chance.

Those are my two cents.

Posted by Francis @ 12/27/2001 05:09 PM EST

I am torn between selling my TV, stereo, etc. to live in peace, and selling it to buy a new massive, awesome home entertainment center.

Posted by JS @ 12/28/2001 11:28 AM EST

In my opinion, there are two kinds of information overload: option overload, where there is so many choices that you're confused (what shall I wear today?), and data overload, where there is too much data/information coming in. (Cramming for a test is one case of data overload.)The Internet can do both quite easily. So many places, too much stuff on them.

Posted by Morris Cox @ 12/30/2001 09:05 PM EST

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