SMCQ14 Media overload? Consequences of the stream
June 14, 2009 by Deborah Crooks
At the same time social media has created a wealth of opportunities to create, consume, interact and react to information, the diversity of media can be staggering as quantity and immediacy often overshadow quality. The Social Media Editorial board discussed how this ‘web of now’ is trumping deeper context and how exposure to a constant stream of information may be shaping our behavior for better or for worse.
We’d love to hear how you are making meaning in an increasingly shallow media landscape. What have we lost, if anything, and what are we gaining? Do you have any strategies for negotiating media overload? We’d love your comments on our 14th Question of the week:
SMCQ14 What are the consequences of exposure to a constant, high-volume stream of media and information?
How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!
I find that I’m using others to do some of the sifting — I find Twitter friends, bloggers and trusted sources that point me in the direction of worthwhile media. If they forward it, write about it or otherwise point to it — I’m sure to spend time there.
I don’t feel that we’ve lost anything to the ‘web of now’ – the depth is still out there, you just need to find it.
I embrace content on the web. Being an info junkie has never been easier due to the constant stream of content on the Internet. But now that I think about the question, I suppose I do have a strategy for how I consume media – and the managing has much to do with the tools I use to consume the media.
Computer – I use my computer in the form of RSS feeds, blogs, and news aggregator sites to keep me updated on the latest technology trends all of which help me kept current. One of my favorites that I read via RSS feed is MIT Tech Review. They are often the first to report on an up and coming technology.
iPhone – I commute on the train about an hour a day, so I use my iPhone for more general reading and spend a lot of time browsing the NY Times. This keeps me current on world events along with sentiment and trends in the U.S. Additionally, I spend time reading the newsletters subscriptions that flood my email inbox each morning. And just in case I run out of items to read, I have a book loaded into the iPhone Kindle application – currently reading the World Wide Rave by David Merriman Scott.
iPod – I often listen to news stories while cooking or driving. I never miss the BusinessWeek Cover story podcast and often get my social media fix via Hubspot TV
Twitter (via mobile or computer)- I read a lot of the stories the folks I follow point to. For the most part, they never fail to interest me in some fashion.
Downtime – I do subscribe to a few magazine, Newsweek, Science News and Cooking Light. Love to spend time on the weekends reading, and I find that a good Newsweek article will give me the depth into stories that I miss during the week when consuming news via online sources.
To follow-up on my previous post, just read a great story in the Atlantic about how the US news weeklies are changing to address the media overload generation.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/news-magazines
Tami