“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
Herbert Simon

It takes little time to convince us:
More is better.

More
toys,
attention,
food,
money,
recognition,
time.

There are scenarios we can collectively agree: more is better.

More people being fed.
More people having access to high-quality education.
More people having access to high-quality healthcare.

All of these are great things.

But is more always better?
Can possessing more of something actually leave you with less?

Consider information.

Information is a tool.
It helps us better understand our complex environment, while also giving us a sense of control and autonomy. Without it, we would be even more vulnerable to even more threats than what we currently are.

Information can help us survive.
We have learned how to best meet our needs of food, water, and shelter. Beyond meeting our physiological needs, we can also utilize information to help us be and feel safe, allowing us greater stability.

Information can help us thrive.
When your needs are met and survival is no longer a pressing problem, you can seek what helps you thrive. You can begin to develop a deeper connection with others, find what boosts your well-being, and possibly even pursue self-actualization.

But, is more information always better?

The average American consumes roughly 34 gigabytes of information everyday (the scary part: this study, conducted in 2008, leaves out the Social Media boom).

Americans took in five times as much information daily in 2011 than they did in 1986.

Every minute of the day, there are:
18,100,000 texts sent
4,497,420 Google searches.
511,200 Tweets.

Speaking to our mass consumption, Ryan Holiday writes in Stillness is the Key, “we are overfed and undernourished.”

While there are clear benefits to obtaining (valuable and accurate) information, there are two problems we must contend with:

1) Consuming is not learning.
2) Life is too short to not pay attention.

Consuming is not learning.

When did the end goal of learning become to simply consume information?

A necessary shift in how we conceptualize and practice learning is needed.
We have wrongfully equated consuming with learning.

The consuming is not the learning.

The decoding of
books,
chapters,
pages,
paragraphs,
sentences,
phrases,
words,
morphemes,
phonemes,
is not the learning.

The reflecting is the learning.

The hearing of
topics,
arguments,
points,
subpoints,
phrases,
words,
morphemes,
phonemes,
is not the learning.

The reflecting is the learning.

The psychologist and educational reformer, John Dewey, once wrote, “we do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”

We must begin to pursue quality over quantity,
meaning we need to recognize our impulsive desire to consume more
and
begin to accept wisdom is much harder to come by than merely absorbing information.

Clarity will remain out of reach to those who consume but fail to reflect.

Learning is fueled by curiosity.
Consuming is fueled by control.

Curiosity is light.
Control is heavy.

Curiosity allows wonder and awe: I get to learn this?
Control demands answers and wants them now.

Curiosity seeks appreciation and application.
Control seeks more for the sake of more.

To consume without reflecting is to bypass learning.
The reflecting is the learning.

Life is too short to not pay attention.

What good is information if I am not paying attention?

When you are being bombarded with endless messages
and
you are consuming endless amounts of information,
do not be surprised if you entirely miss the moment.

Information demands our attention.
To not pay attention is to not be present.
To not be present is to not be fully alive.

With the guarantee of a brief, momentary life, why wouldn’t we strive to pay attention during it?

Life demands our attention.
To pay attention is to be present.
To be present is to be fully alive.

A simple check-in to gauge your level of attention:

Can I feel a sense of appreciation for the seemingly simple things of everyday life?

Coffee,
work,
walks,
meetings,
laundry,
cleaning,
cooking,
everything in between.

Am I able to go beyond the conventional categorizations of
leisure
and
labor,
and attempt to find, however small, some ounce of appreciation for the moment?

When we overindulge ourselves with information, we remain physically alive, but something from our experience seems to be missing.

Even if your
heart is beating,
lungs are expanding and contracting,
blood is coursing through your veins,
you can still entirely miss your life.

Is it possible for someone to be absent
yet
feel alive?

We must intentionally find a balance.

How am I to move on from here?

While I am unaware of a silver bullet that will offer us immediate clarity, I do not think we need to make it overly complex.

Marcus Aurelius, the famous Roman Emperor and philosopher, offers a simple question for us to both ask and answer. He writes, “Ask yourself at every moment, ‘is this necessary?’”

Is what I am consuming necessary?
If so, continue reading, watching, or listening to it.
Enjoy it, too, if possible.

If it is not necessary, set it aside.
Our attention is too valuable to let it leave us with such indifference.

Simply put: we must be mindful of what we are consuming.

Asking and answering these questions can help us break the habit of mindlessly saying yes to every piece of information that asks for our attention:

• Why this? (reading, article, book, podcast, video, etc.)
• Is this necessary?
• Do I want / need it? Why?
• Am I coming from a place of curiosity, control, or neither?

More information isn’t always necessary for greater knowledge.
It certainly isn’t needed for greater wisdom.
More is not always better.

The hours we spend consuming copious amounts of information may not be worth what we are giving up for it. After all, as Henry David Thoreau penned, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

The cost of this consumption can be an unlived life.

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We can learn in a way where we grow in wisdom, not just our collection of facts.

The consuming is not the learning
The reflecting is the learning.

We must unlearn how to learn.

You don’t have to do this alone.

Let me give you a framework to help you learn, supporting you in your growth and development.

Click HERE to learn more!