Information Overload

"Digital Self-Portrait"
by Paul Micarelli

When I started this blog in the ancient past (2005), it was a pre-social media Internet world where Myspace had just come into existence. Society was void of smartphones, so people were still mostly tied to desktop computers for access to online information.

Since then, the world and our relationship with online information has transformed dramatically. My personal relationship with the Internet has also changed. When I was in my 20's & 30's, still a bachelor living on my own, I blogged often & was very politically outspoken. Nowadays, I don't post nearly as much as I'd like. The biggest factor is having a son who's a wild and energetic toddler, with my wife & I now expecting a baby girl this summer. I work full-time as a graphic designer at a busy print shop. When I come home, I'm trying to balance getting stuff done around the house with spending time playing with my son, and still trying to share some rare moments alone with my wife. (Oh yeah, I sometimes get a few minutes for myself, too...) Life is very hectic right now, but I am trying to enjoy every moment of it.

Due to the whirlwind that I live each day, there is a combination of exhaustion & overload that prevents me from fulfilling my personal creative drive in the same way that I used to. Luckily, my career is very creative and productive, which gives me a lot of fulfillment. 

When it comes to speaking out on social and political issues, I think my attitude now is mostly, "Why the fuck should I even bother?" It goes back to the title of this post - "Information Overload". The Internet & social media is now an outlet for every ignorant motherfucker on the planet to spout off stupid takes & misinformation, right alongside reasoned commentary and insightful wisdom. Debating politics with people never changes anyone's mind, and everyone is now online just arguing past each other. "Opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one, & they all stink". I still feel strongly about politics and current events, but I feel like trying to express my own stinky opinion is just futilely shouting into the wind...

So why am I still here, spouting off my thoughts? I don't know, I guess I feel like I have an obligation to continue creating content on this platform I've started. Of course, I also still have the urge to express myself for the benefit of others, even if I feel like it is drowned out among all the other noise. I have an additional motivation now, which is to leave some remnants of myself for my children to possibly discover in the future. Who knows if Blogger will even be around when they get older, but maybe my posts will be archived somehow for them to read and get a glimpse into their Dad's mind.

With the sheer volume of information online, along with the advent of mass usage of Artificial Intelligence (like my dabbling with AC: Artificial Creativity), the human brain simply cannot handle the digital infinities emerging before us. Not much shocks me, but as a creative professional, the rapid emergence of A.I. art has given me an ongoing existential crisis. Even our collective consciousness is struggling to adapt to these rapidly shifting paradigms. As I write this, we have not yet truly faced the consequences of deep fakes, A.I creations, and misinformation used for deception & social chaos. What happens when we can no longer believe anything at all that we experience online, or in the media?

Perhaps human ingenuity (augmented with A.I.-driven solutions, ironically?) will find ways to deal with these frightening prospects. Perhaps we will suffer from a digital apocalypse where humans disengage from technology and go back to analog, tribal living. Most likely, we will continue to barrel along headfirst into a techno-dystopia, where these emerging tools are used to consolidate power and control over the masses. I'm not a complete pessimist, though. I think Life will go on and people will continue to adapt, as we have since the Ice Age almost wiped us out.

I hope for my children & humanity's sake that things don't go horribly wrong and society collapses or something crazy like that. There will always be suffering and chaos, but I think that people will continue to survive & thrive one way or another. How we handle the "information overload" is going to determine our path forward and our future as a species.