Much of the stress you feel today can be traced to monolithic purveyors of news and information. The U.S. government, believe it or not, is the world's largest publisher and the combined total of information and stuff impacting your life that it spews out on a daily basis is beyond comprehension. Concurrently, the news media, ever-bent on seeking the latest gore to explore, then piously deplore, convolute society on a daily basis, offering unbalanced coverage of the absurd, the titillating, and the sensational. If only these two institutions were the only over-information culprits. Unfortunately, society is beset with purveyors of news and information.

The Great Age of Information Hasn't Arrived

Chances are that you are besieged by all kinds of information competing for your time and attention. Is this merely a lucky guess?

Given the way society is progressing, everyone who holds a position of responsibility is besieged by too much competing for their time and attention.

What is the origin of this information buildup? Was it predictable? Can you look to the past to see the reasons why there's so much information today? It turns out that you can. There have been three great ages of humankind, with a fourth about to emerge:

1. The first was the age of hunting and gathering, wherein people principally lived by hunting animals and collecting berries. Your ancestors, in particular, did a pretty good job at this.

2. The age of agriculture followed, when people learned that they didn't have to be nomads, wandering around to find their next meal. Instead, they could cultivate the soil, predict when crops would grow, and forecast what their yield would be. This was a great leap forward for humankind in some respects; it allowed for an understanding of how to work with nature and the seasons. It also prompted people to have unprecedented numbers of children--many died at birth, and all who survived were needed to work the fields and soon as they could.

3. The next great age was that of industry, in which all manner of capital were put together so that consumers, as a class, would be served by producers. This prompted producers to learn countless ways to turn out products through mass production capabilities. Improved printing and publishing processes were among the key developments of this age.

The next age that will emerge--but is not here in full swing --is the information age. Do you believe that we're in the information age already? In the information age, information will serve you, and you will not be abused by an excess of information. The present, pre-information age era in which you now reside is an era of over-information, an idea to which you can readily relate.

Flip the Switch, Man

In the industrial age when people need to achieve something rather ordinary, did they have to go through a series of motions, read manuals, or become experts at the task? Not at all. Consider turning on the lights in your room. You flip a switch, or clap your hands or make some other sound--such technology has been available for at least a decade. It isn't necessary to know a single thing about lighting for you to light a room. Lighting is a product of the industrial age, and lights serve you--to get them on, you only flip a switch.

To start your car, you need only turn the key. To take care of other tasks, you push a button, flip a switch, or turn a dial. These are industrial age processes working at their best, so that you don't have to become an electrical engineer or physicist to function effectively. In fact, you could say that industrial age processes serve you almost invisibly

An Over-Abundance

Consider what it takes to function effectively in the age of industry, and apply it to information. To get the information you need, what do you need to do? You need to go on-line, open a manual, make several calls, consult an expert, buy the latest issue of something, or undertake even more onerous steps. Unfortunately, right now--particularly today crypto news in the workplace--you undertake a series of activities to get the precise information you need.

Often, your problem is not a lack of information on a topic. Frequently, the problem you face is an abundance of information, or too much information of a general nature. The age of information is coming wherein you'll instantaneously receive answers to your questions. Before the great age is fully in swing, you'll be besieged by more information than all previous generations combined.