Information Overload

Knowledge puffeth up —1 Corinthians 8:1

Daniel 12:4 prophesies in the end times, “knowledge shall be increased.”  By the time of the industrial revolution (1820-1840) a body of knowledge was established, accumulated from Adam to the time of the industrial revolution.  By 1900 this expanse of knowledge doubled. By 1950 it doubled again. By 1960 it doubled again. By 1965 it doubled again.  Today, this mass of knowledge—everything man knows—is doubling every two years.  We are truly living in the “information age.”

Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book, Future Shock, prophesies what might happen when there is “too much change in too short of a period of time.” He contended that the enormous changes taking place and the sudden increase of knowledge will eventually overwhelm people.  Man’s cranial computer would not be able to take it all in.  The accelerated rate of technological and social change will leave people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation,” hence, future shocked.  In such a scenario as Toffler described he coined the term “information overload.”

What a picture of today when many are educated beyond their intelligence!   “We’ve created more information in the last five years than in all of human history before it, and it’s coming at us all the time” (Daniel Levitin, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload).  “In a sense,” Levitin says, “we become addicted to the hyperstimulation.”

As Paul wrote, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). It’s not how much you know, but who do you know? Do you know Jesus, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).