Fog of Information
“In this day and age... we are faced with a Fog of
Information that is as distracting and detrimental as the fog of war.”
- from “Bread & Circuses”
Information Overload (AKA: infobesity or infoxication) is a state of mental uncertainty and consequential inaction, driven by too much incoming information. This mental malaise occurs when an individual has difficulty in understanding and effectively making decisions on a specific issue, precisely because they have been inundated with excessive, often conflicting quantities of information, pertaining to said specific issue.
The concept of Information Overload originated in the study of Information Theory, which examines the storage, preservation, communication, compression, and extraction of information. The term, information overload, was popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. Here is a brief definition from a recent study on information theory:
Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision-makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur.
As any intrepid explorer of our exponentially expanding digital culture has experienced, information overload is a direct byproduct of social media and the insidious rise of what has been labeled the Attention Economy. Within attention economics, an individual’s attention span is considered a natural resource, to be extracted and exploited like any other commodity. Once again… strange days have found us.
In these strange days, information overload is the exacerbating yet predictable result of too many, increasingly unmanageable information streams. In addition to texting and the antiquated e-mail, we are subjected to a daily barrage of facebook, youtube, snapchat, instagram and of course twitter… all received through our now-pervasive mobile devices. Together, these information streams cascade and inundate each of us in a cumulative morass of data that we refer to as a Fog of Information.
In analogy to a Fog of War, fog of information obscures a clear view of the digital battlefields of the Culture Wars being waged on and through these information mediums. As in military conflicts, a fog of information is a stark reality in the culturally and ideologically driven information wars. Precision and certainty may be unattainable goals, but the use of social media facilitates a trade-off of precision and certainty for speed and agility... fast, if not accurate.
The major theatre of battle in the American Culture Wars is being waged in the political arena. As such, battle lines are drawn between Red States and Blue States. This schism pits Republican vs. Democrat… conservatives vs. progressives, coastal elites vs. the heartland. The split is, of course, a divide and conquer strategy, encouraged by those who stand to gain the most from a population fighting amongst themselves. The information fog obscures any clear-headed perspective so that it is impossible to tell who is targeting who. Just keep the message simple… make Amerika great again!
Thus, the president of the U S of A… the illustrious Orange One has become the master of 280 character diplomacy. Forget about protocol… the administrative branch proclaims presidential decree via tweet. Minus any apparent, legally binding executive order, the American legislature anxiously awaits the Orange One’s most recent twitter post, be it a misspelled assault on members of congress, or a proclamation of war. That’s how shit gets done in the information wars!
Political commentary aside, the fog of information imposes a paralyzing cloud of uncertainty over in-depth analysis and critical thinking… in favor of memes and quick sound bytes. These are the tools of the information warrior… thoughtless posts that spawn thoughtless, knee-jerk responses. These are the weapons that are being employed in the socially networked politics of our near future. Decree by tweet is just the beginning.
Meanwhile, social media behemoths such as google and facebook exploit the people’s confusion through the Attention Economy. It turns out that short attention spans are lucrative commodities! Clicks mean profit! Social media has changed the face of not only politics but all facets of our lives. The fog of information even hides the fact that our networked world is changing in ways that most of us do not fathom... as yet.
However… the ever-resourceful readers of this blog possess ways and means in which to counteract the fog of information. Through the art of what has been called synchromysticism, we observe the torrent of information, extracting meta-information from mega-trend. We study the signs and portents to glimpse the over-arching patterns that course through social, pop media. It is this pattern recognition that sharpens and broadens our intel on “what the f#@k is really going on!” In this Brave Noö World… intel is power.
Comments
Fog of War is from a simpler era of warfare, natch. All those people standing in line, firing muskets with old-fashioned gun powder, they threw up a hell of a cloud of smoke. Well, it's not like muskets were so accurate that the smoke would make it that much harder to hit you anyway. Just point in the general direction. Apparently many wounds were in the leg from those heavy lead balls bouncing on the ground. Infected wounds were a real killer, although the balls were heavy enough to shatter bones and create horrific wounds if they hit dead on.
Fog of War, like many terms, has evolved in meaning. It’s contemporary use can denote a soldier’s mental state ranging from confusion to PTSD. It also refers to a broader, cultural amnesia, involving militaristic denial. It refers to a lose of clarity, due to inaccurate or insufficient information within conflicts. What has Prof. Oblivion been smokin?
Welcome to the resistance! The “World Entertainment Wars” have already begun...
I think you are correct when describing the Clausewitz usage of a fog of war being something that makes everything harder even if it is not actually a fog or something related to the battlefield. But he would have expected his readers to have a clear vision of what a smoky battlefield looked like.
There are times when something being mystified can actually make everything easier for you. The radical simplification and removal of nuance allowing a sort of brutal efficiency of action. It is not necessarily harder to fire that musket at men you cannot even properly see. Most soldiers in who first see the enemy are said to aim to miss anyway.
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