In today’s world, we are always given a plethora of information. With the addition of tools such as the internet, a simple search for something leads to hundreds and thousands of sites that may not be any more useful than reading an article in the newspaper. The internet has been both a blessing and a curse in my opinion. In today’s world, students easily forget about the ability to look up information in a textbook and rely solely on articles written by whoever creates a page and decides to put their opinion on it. Because of there being so much information available, it has become increasingly harder to stay informed with accurate information.
Learned helplessness had started to become a daily part of our vocabulary. By this I mean, we as Americans are given too many choices and are therefore no longer able to make simple decisions. Think about the last thing you signed up for. Cable, for example or even a new phone company can work, when you signed up did you just get a simple contract that outlined the details and then a thank you from the phone or cable company. Chances are that you instead got offered multiple ways to upgrade bundle and add to your plan in order to make it “better.” The problem with today’s society is that too many choices have created a society that cannot make decisions. We often end up having so many choices, that we often feel overwhelmed when having to make small decisions instead of being able to say a simple yes or no.
The overwhelming amount of information has also led to the idea of multi-tasking. During your normal day, you are probably texting, checking email, face book and working on a paper at the same time. There have been multiple studies on the effects of multi-tasking and many times the outcomes are the same. Those that think they can effectively multi-task, do not retain the same comprehension of materials as those that do one thing at a time. The youth growing up in this century are constantly distracted by cell phones, laptop computers, and the desire to multi-task. The increase in multi-tasking has led to an inability to stay concentrated and the ability to feel bored easily when there are not numerous things happening at one time.
Unfortunately, the effects of multi-tasking and information overloading have been felt the most by the journalism industry. The internet has allowed anyone to access information instantly, regardless of the accuracy of the information retained. You can search thousands of websites; people made for free and not learn anymore than reading a chapter out of a textbook. Students are unable to decipher the difference between accurate and inaccurate information and many times trying to sift through the information can prove to be a bigger challenge than finding the information itself. There is an overload of information available today. It has been found that too much information can be easily found online and therefore it has become harder to find the true relevance in articles, and to learn accurate facts as well.