Volkov says information overload will not defeat humanity

Advertising expert Joel Volkov says information overload is putting intense pressure on people’s attention and cognitive abilities, but humanity will adapt and “stupidity will not win,” ERR reported.

Volkov said the ability to concentrate, express ideas and write clearly is declining. He predicted in Vikerraadio’s “Friday interview” that writing ability will become a measure of how well people can navigate the world.

He described deep concentration as a luxury even now, and said people should first learn to distinguish what they do not need to examine in depth.

Access to knowledge and the ability to speak publicly have probably never been greater, the interview noted. Information that once took days or months to obtain can now be found in seconds, while anyone can be both a consumer and a creator of information.

“This is a huge opportunity and certainly not a story about how everything was more beautiful and better in the past,” the interview introduction said. “But the speed of these changes raises the question of whether we have changed just as quickly. Can we still concentrate, notice things and understand them amid all this information?”

Volkov has worked in advertising, design and communications for more than 30 years, fields in which he has had to decide every day how to win people’s attention and make something seemingly meaningful.

He said people themselves had not changed much over millions of years because evolution was relatively slow. The media environment, however, had developed rapidly.

“A person has changed from the role of listener to that of participant more quickly than in 30 years. In fact, this has happened over the last 15 years or so,” Volkov said.

He said people, as relatively slow-developing organisms, were confused and did not know exactly how to respond to all the messages attacking them at once.

“From my perspective as an advertising professional or communicator, it is quite difficult to navigate how different layers respond. Some are still very slow, while others are very fast. You constantly have to think your way between them,” he said.

Volkov agreed that it was not people who had changed so much, but the environment around them. That environment inevitably affected people’s cognitive parameters, determining whether they became nervous or withdrew into themselves.

He said winning people’s attention was generally more difficult than it had been in the 1990s. However, if a message reached the right layer or “social nerve,” it could unexpectedly spread very quickly, although predicting this was extremely difficult.

Volkov said his own reading and viewing habits had also changed. He now read only very high-quality books because there was no point in reading everything.

He listened to a great deal of content, sometimes at increased speed, and said many people preferred to consume important material through audio, podcasts, YouTube or other audiovisual channels.

The speed of absorbing information had undoubtedly increased, he said, but its retention had decreased. Much depended on the information being read or consumed.