Murphy’s Law – The Too Much Information Age
Joel Murphy |
“The problem is, after a week of intense googling, we’ve started to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. God must feel that way all the time. I think people in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.”
– Douglas Coupland, J-Pod
The time we are living in is often referred to as the Information Age. However, I’m beginning to wonder if it should be rebranded the “Too Much Information Age.” I’m beginning to feel like we are too plugged in to each other and are too informed. Because we live in a world with 24-hour news cycles and RSS news feeds, media outlets are churning out stories even when they have nothing to report.
Last week, Barack Obama was sworn in as our 44th President of the United States, which was certainly a historic moment and worthy of the all-day coverage it received. However, the build up to the inauguration featured some of the most pointless and ridiculous stories I’ve ever seen. The weekend before the inauguration, CNN was featuring all-day coverage of Obama’s train ride to Washington, D.C. The entire story consisted of this – Obama and his family took a train from Pennsylvania to D.C. That’s it. That’s the entire story. Yet CNN devoted the whole day to covering it, giving updates along the way.
That’s not news. There is nothing interesting about it. He took a train ride. So what? Now, if Obama ran next to the train the whole way to D.C. (proving simultaneously that he was both faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive), that would have been newsworthy. At that point, endless hours of Anderson Cooper blabbering on would have been welcomed.
It also wasn’t a story when Obama’s kids went to school in D.C. for the first time. Kids go to school all the time. I don’t need to see creepy paparazzi shots of the two of them heading into their school and I certainly didn’t need to find out what their school was serving for lunch that week (yes, news outlets reported it).
This nonsense isn’t just focused on the front page of your newspaper either. Earlier this week, ESPN reported the following “very exciting” story – the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals arrived in Tampa. Wow really? So the two teams that are playing in the Super Bowl this year flew to the city where the game is to be held? Well then, by all means stop the presses. What did they have to eat on the plane (or better yet, what did their kids eat for lunch that day)? Did they watch any good in-flight movies? Please, spare no details. (Then again, I guess there are only so many times the late-to-the-party ESPN sportscasters can hype up the “underdog” Arizona Cardinals).
But it’s not just the media outlets and sports sites that are reporting pointless stories just to kill time. Thanks to websites like Twitter and features like Facebook and MySpace’s status updates, each and every one of us can bore our friends with endless updates on our lives. Wondering what your coworker had for dinner last night? Curious about when that dude you only vaguely remember from high school that you only added to your Facebook list because you were trying to boost your total number of friends has his next dentist appointment? Well, fear not, because they will be more than happy to keep you updated. If you are really lucky, they might even post updates from their cell phone (and make a point to tell you that they are) so that you never have to go a single moment without knowing what they are doing.
I feel like as a society we are turning into one of those old couples that have been together for so many years that they’ve run out of interesting things to talk about, so they just sit there quietly staring off into space while eating their never-ending soup, salad and breadsticks. We all know too much about each other and, as a result, all of the mystery and intrigue has worn off.
Last night, I was thinking back to the early days of the Internet when I would use my dial-up connection to sign on to AOL and would wait for hours for a single video on Joe Cartoon to load up. I was thinking about how spoiled we’ve all become now and how these days I bitch and complain if it takes more than three seconds for a video to load up. Obviously, we can never go back to the way things were (unless, of course, Snake Plissken actually uses the “Sword of Damocles” to render all of our technology useless and send us back into the Stone Age like he did in Escape From L.A.).
But perhaps we can dial back the endless updates and the 24-hour news cycle just a bit. Look, don’t get me wrong – obviously, being informed on current events and keeping in touch with your friends are important things. But there is a fine line between being informed and having too much information crammed down your throat.
Now, I can’t speak for the rest of you, but the only thing I want crammed down my throat is never-ending soup, salad and breadsticks. I only hope I have something interesting left to say while eating it.
Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.
My boss and I both have the Blackberry Storm for a cell phone. One of the features of course is that it send you your email automatically. Well, he dropped his yesterday and smashed the front screen so I told him to head over to Verizon and hopefully they would have some in stock to replace it. He said, “I hope so, I’d hate to have to drag my computer around or wait until I got home to get my emails.” I replied, “Yeah, it’s tough to have to step back into 20th Century technology.”
I have to admit to being just as bad though. Yesterday, I was in the waiting room at my dentist’s office and instead of reading one of the magazines they had, I spent the time surfing the web on my phone. I won’t go back to how it was before, I won’t!!!!
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I hope Obama’s daughters were greeted with open arms and week of pizza day.
And…next time you are even thinking of updating your Facebook page on the go or even have one for that matter I suggest you suck start a 9mm. If those people you are ‘reconnecting with after all this time’ really gave two shits about you they would have kept in touch. While they sit there laughing at how pathetic you were then and not even realizing how ironically pathetic you both are looking at your life through a fucking machine that was made for porn viewing and pirating music……I hope they are jerking off to pictures of your wife/girlfriend right now. Remember the good old days when you actually went out for a beer and would meet people. I know it’s a crazy idea for you Fucktards that don’t even know who to communicate with the outside world without an XBOX 360 Headset on. I remember growing up when wanted to find my friends they were all outside. You know that place you see light coming from when you finally emerge from your parent’s basement. Do us all a favor a walk out into traffic and end it all and maybe the next generation won’t be a bunch of pale skinned, social inept, Pussies.
No wonder Skynet took over…..half of you Blackberry toting sis-bags can’t even read a map (I’ve seen this first hand), and why should you the bitch on your dash board tells you where to go….I hope her next direction is off a cliff with three of your closest friends in the car.
The economy keeps going like it is, your soft manicured hands are going to get fucked up when you have to take up a trade(and I’m not talking about what you did with your Magic:The Gathering cards). You know a job that includes hard labor and it will just kill you to have wait till you get home to see how your Class 3 Bard/Wizard/Butt-Pirate did in Worlds of Warcraft while you were gone.
While we are at it……..Star wars was a Trilogy. Three movies that I saw in the movie theater as a kid and loved. Not the 3 weak-ass attempts to rekindle a franchise that was thrown together. Jar Jar Binks ring a bell? Thanks George Lucas for selling my childhood and your soul. So now we are bombarded by shitty animation movies and Lego Luke Skywalkers just to put a couple more dollars in your greedy ass pocket. Quit buying his shit.
Yeah…that’s right I’m just old. I’m 34, married with two kids, I don’t text, I don’t have a Facebook page (and get really pissed when people ask me to join). Why? Because I’m not a 12 year old fucking girl and I have more of a life than any of you technology savvy wonder sissies.
Fuck you.
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Not you Joel…I love you.
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House – I should have taken the week off and just let you write this column.
That was a great rant, my friend.
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holy fuckballs. joel said what i have said in my head for the last year, (cause I have no friends to articulate it to here) and then milhouse puts the icing on the cake. when I get back to the US this summer, I am going to ask my friend mihouse OUT for a beer, and even drive up to the land that holds the hobo and see if he drinks still.
you know what grinds my gears? people who can’t type full words.
you know what burns my ass? a flame about 3 feet high.
i still don’t use capital letters.
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Millhouse wrote nearly 500 words and the only thing anyone should take away from it is he hates people who have an XBox 360 … mostly because his wife won’t let him have one.
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Unfortunately I think the average person in the U.S. has about as much taste and common sense as a bucket of terds. That’s the real reason we get no real news. Check out BBC World News if you want to see a reporter ACTUALLY REPORT THE GODDAMN NEWS!! However, if you’d like to find out what Tom and Katie had for breakfast today, take a gander at your local news station. This all feeds into a horrible new trend in U.S. broadcasting – terrible-ass shows. Jon & Kate plus 8? Are you shitting me? If you watch this show and haven’t stabbed your eyeballs out within the first 35 seconds, then I have a few directions for you. Find a shotgun – insert the end of the barrel in your mouth – finally, if your arms are not long enough, you can use your toes to depress the trigger. Problem solved…one less TLC viewer. I mean, really. Why should I give two shits about some doofus and his cunt wife and their noisey-ass troupe of emo-kids in training? I shouldn’t, and I don’t. I hope they catch on fire. THAT would be newsworthy. I can see the headline now “Gaggle of Retards Catch on Fire Because God Hates Them”…details at 11.
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Hey, I agree lets keep the news – what it should be – informative and newsworthy!
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A recent conversation:
Me: Hey, I bought a car this week.
Friend: Yeah, I read that on Twitter.
I felt extra dirty that day.
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Hey J,(if that is your real name)
Punch yourself in the dick…..and try not hit your friend in the mouth.
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