IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2015 - 63

commentary

Levent V. Orman

Information Paradox
Drowning in Information, Starving for Knowledge

e are living in an age
of information. Staggering amounts of
information are collected, stored, and
widely disseminated. Yet, we may
be less informed and less knowledgeable than ever. This paradox of increasing information, yet
decreasing knowledge and insight,
has many possible causes, some
of which are subtle and difficult to
identify, and even more difficult to
remedy. The fundamental issue is
quantity crowding out quality, leading to an abundance of poor-quality
information which may not be a
good substitute for scarce but highquality information. Information is
not unique in exhibiting this paradox. There are many other goods
that exhibit this unusual characteristic of more being worse than less.
Those who eat the most food are
rarely the healthiest people, and
they may actually be severely deficient in some nutrients. Those who
have the most Facebook friends
are often the loneliest people.
Those who are the busiest are not

ISTOCK/ TungSTenblue

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Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2494359
Date of publication: 17 December 2015

december 2015

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the most productive. Those who
read books and watch television
the most are sometimes the least
knowledgeable. All of these examples point to the pervasiveness of
this paradox, but it is most insidi-

ous with information, critical in an
information economy, and most
difficult to overcome in a modern
society dominated by communication technologies. In an information
economy, we may be shipwrecked,

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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