Andrea’s Comments (group member since Sep 10, 2013)

Andrea’s comments from the HyperLibMOOC group.

Julia wrote: "I keep finding more books I will have to read when this course is over." Of course, this is exactly the problem! I have been enjoying the irony of media warning me about media. Which doesn't make it wrong, just harder to act on.

I am through the first part of this book and it is a little bit terrifying! The book is about information overconsumption and the first part is focused on the definition of and consequences from overconsumption.

Over the first 5 chapters some key terms rang true:
overconsumption
affirmation distributors
link-bait
churnalism
media miners
reality dysmorphia
confirmation bias
ignorance epidemic
production of doubt
culturally induced doubt
epistemic closure
filter failure
personalization technology

But when Johnson gets to chapter 6 is when I started to really feel panic. That's the chapter called "The Symptoms of Information Obesity" and though I already knew I was a candidate for a diet, if I hadn't before then, chapter 6 would have had me scared straight.

I mean, I already kind of knew information consumption affected my sense of time (that's why I listen to audiobooks on long drives) and attention fatigue is discussed in the literature (facebook ruins young people's attention span, right?) but the other symptoms are downright creepy. Loss of social breadth, distorted sense of reality - I suppose I should have been able to identify these, but I sure hadn't. Brand loyalty...a little creepy. Apnea...a lot more creepy! And that's before Johnson makes a drive-by mention of "a variety of other addictive disorders that come alongside information overconsumption" in the second to last paragraph of Part I. YIKES! I am looking forward to some concrete advice in Part II.

And on a side note - I am appreciating the metaphor between physical and information obesity and frankly it is astounding how much of it maps across. Evolution, neurology, health, sociology, and more play out in remarkably similar ways for food and information. I suspect the "diet" portion of the book will work the same drawing parallels. At least I hope it does. It's been fascinating.

Yes! The role of libraries seems to have flipped 180 degrees...from providing access to as much information on a topic as possible to providing a carefully selected subsection of the material on a topic. I love the notion of smart rooms, and imagine Kyle's assignment on Community Engagement as a very good place to start.

Following Daniel's good idea to have threads about the books we choose, I started this one for The Information Diet. I got my copy from the library this week and will be posing thoughts here as I go along. Join me if you choose this book, too.

My pleasure. I hope folks find it useful.

We have set up a bookshelf for all of the Context Book assignment choices and put them also on the "to-read" book shelf. Once you've read one of these books, please feel free to move it to the "read" bookshelf for the group. And if you want to add a review or blurb or other comments about it, that would be great. Even a link to your completed assignment would be great if you're comfortable sharing it.

Obviously these aren't the only books in the MOOC. Please feel free to add any books you want and create whatever shelves are useful to you that you think the group would appreciate. All that should be open to everyone, but if you encounter any problems, just let me know.