The web was once very primative with a limited amount of content. Most of this was academic, sharing knowledge between institutions. Email was the main communication channel, and user feedback was sent through this medium.

With Twitter, FriendFeed, and blogs galore, there is a tremendous amount of data being uploaded to the web. What used to be managable for users to consume has blown up to years of reading, all created within seconds. And with even less time in the hectic lives of users, how can we consume all this information.

Information overload is becoming a problem. A user rarely visit each website and determine manually what is new and what has changed. The human memory cannot take on this much responsibility or withstand the fatigue that such effort would create.

Services like Google Reader help limit a firehose of information and present it in a smaller, easier digestable chunks. Google Reader presents a user interface that greys out any RSS items you have viewed, among other techniques to speed up analysis of what’s important.

But this can cause another problem. The attention spans of children and teens reading on the web has shortened. Instead of reading thousand word essays, they have become accustomed to 140 character content chunks. The small amount of information contained in these chunks is easy to consume quickly. Sometimes too quickly and can negatively shorten the attention span.

The always on and always available content never ends and can become addicting. The goal of getting through all the content is never fulfilled and can be detrimental for someone who needs to reach goals in their life. Are you missing something valuable by going to sleep without finishing reading the long list of content that just came in?  Just a few more minutes should do.

During breaks and downtime, reading an entry here or there keeps the brain working constantly, and can lead to never resting and relaxing. The already shortened attention spans become even shorter, impatient and an always on attention spans.

It’s important to realize that sometimes having access to everything isn’t always the best.  Use caution when near the firehose of information.  It’s okay to step away.