Last week, I started reading Kim Baer’s Information Design Workbook, a comprehensive and insightful guide to effective information design with valuable case studies.

I thought I would share an excerpt from page 16:

Information Overload: Not Just Hype.

Did you know:

—Globally, there are more than 3,000 books published daily.
—There are 540,000 words in the English language today, more than five times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
—It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

No wonder we’re all having trouble keeping on top of the latest and greatest.  With access to so much everyday, filtering information to get to pertinent and quality content, is an arduous task.  Whether it’s via search algorithms or friends’ recommendations, we need all the help we can get to cope with information overload.

Luckily, I still see information gathering as a treasure hunt, where the stumble-upon adventure is part of the fun!  But let’s see how I feel when I’m expected to find a very specific nugget of information in a finite amount of time.  Not as fun?