Information Overload: Technology, the Internet, and Arthroscopy

Abstract

Information overload. The term was popularized by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 best-seller, “Future Shock,” 1“Information overload.” Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overloadGoogle Scholar but the concept may be traced back to the 18th century French philosopher Diderot. 1“Information overload.” Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overloadGoogle Scholar But Diderot was not the first to lament the challenges we humans face as a result of the increasing knowledge and documentation of facts, fiction, and fables about the world we inhabit (as well as the world we are able to imagine). In Phaedrus, Socrates warned that the very invention of books “creates forgetfulness” in our souls. 2Lehrer J. “Our cluttered minds.” The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Lehrer-t.html#Google Scholar Technology rolls on: books, the printing press, “the speed of transmission … of telegrams,” radio, television, computers, the Internet . . . . 2Lehrer J. “Our cluttered minds.” The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Lehrer-t.html#Google Scholar When it comes to readers of Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, the explosion of the volume of information with which we are presented challenges us. There is always new scientific information. There are so many textbooks, and so many journals, many of which arrive on our desks absent active subscription on our parts. And with computers and the Internet in the last decade, in addition to our actual mail boxes where we receive “snail mail” (named after the snail with its slow speed), 3“Snail mail.” Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail_mailGoogle Scholar we have electronic mail boxes, where we receive e-mails that may include links to Web sites, and attachments including documents, photographs, videos, and more (which we cannot even imagine until the day they arrive). Of course, this challenging information explosion is not limited to science. We have other professional demands (practices to manage, licenses to renew, societies in which to participate, schedules we must organize), as well as personal demands and interests outside of arthroscopy, each of which requires our attention to ever-burgeoning piles of papers or electronic content. As a result of information overload, we respond by improving our organization and efficiency. We must become increasingly selective about what and how we read. We individually edit in a manner similar to an editor who must decide what will be published in a newspaper or in a scientific journal. We must also become time managers and compartmentalize and choose when and for how long we will devote ourselves to science and medicine, when we might focus on sports or current events, when to spend time on literature and culture, when to work, when to play, when to devote time to family, and so on. We haven't time for everything, and so we must develop individual strategies for deciding when to simply “delete” and, if not, how much time to devote to those things we choose not to delete. It is obvious that in the last decade, as a result of the development of the Internet and related technology, the explosion of information to which we have access has uncontrollably increased. The effect of the Internet explosion has been thoughtfully considered by author Nicholas Carr in The Atlantic magazine article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 4Carr N. “Is Google making us stupid?” The Atlantic.http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/Google Scholar and in his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. 5Carr N. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Norton, New York2010Google Scholar In addition, The Shallows has been elegantly reviewed by Jonah Lehrer in the New York Times. 2Lehrer J. “Our cluttered minds.” The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Lehrer-t.html#Google Scholar Carr argues that while the Internet offers obvious efficiencies, the search engine (i.e., Google) and the constant availability of instant and often distracting information (where a new screen is just a click away or simply “pops up” on its own) has actually changed the way we think. Instead of deep concentration and scholarly reading, we merely skim the surface “like a guy on a Jet Ski,” and bounce from wave to wave. 2Lehrer J. “Our cluttered minds.” The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Lehrer-t.html#Google Scholar, 4Carr N. “Is Google making us stupid?” The Atlantic.http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/Google Scholar, 5Carr N. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Norton, New York2010Google Scholar Carr further argues that the Internet is actually changing our cerebral cortices. Neural circuitry is malleable and Carr feels that, “Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going—so far as I can tell—but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet … My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles … The more [we] use the Web, the more [we] have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.” 4Carr N. “Is Google making us stupid?” The Atlantic.http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/Google Scholar To summarize Carr's argument, the Internet may not only be changing the way we read; it may be changing the way we think and destroying our powers of concentration! Your editors find this idea a bit frightening, and theorize that by becoming aware of the risk, we may make choices to mitigate against the loss of our ability to concentrate. One obvious choice: keep reading Arthroscopy, and ideally in the print format. That said, the electronic age has directly affected our journal. In addition to the development of an electronic version, the option of e-only subscriptions for some international readers, and our encouragement of video, 6Lubowitz J.H. Poehling G.G. Let's go to the video.Arthroscopy. 2009; 25: 705-706Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar necessitates e-reading or e-viewing. Another effect of the Internet on the journal is, as we editors have previously commented, with the ease of electronic, international access, our number of submissions has doubled, and redoubled, 7Lubowitz J.H. Poehling G.G. The research effort.Arthroscopy. 2007; 23: 1143-1144Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (12) Google Scholar and since we published that information, the number of submissions is on the verge of doubling yet again. And the quality of those submissions has also improved. Some articles that were accepted and published just last year might not be of a quality that would be accepted today. We must “raise the bar” and only accept articles of a higher standard of quality. Despite this effort, we may, from time-to-time, accept more articles than in the past, but this may result in a backlog of accepted articles and a delay in time to publication. However, a significant delay in time to publication is not acceptable. Timely publication of scientific information is necessary to keep such information up-to-date, which ultimately is of benefit to patients. How to solve the dilemma of increased, high-quality submissions resulting in increased number of accepted articles? As above, we may “raise the bar” and accept fewer articles. In addition, we may increase the number of pages in each issue, and have already done so, but for various practical reasons, the solution of increasing page numbers has its limits. Therefore, in this September issue, we offer another solution to a recent, large number of high-quality articles accepted for publication: a Supplement. A few words about the September, 2010, supplement: First, with regard to timing, we considered a summer supplement. (For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer is just coming to its end). However, summer may be a time for beach reading (i.e., lighter fare) or a time to take a vacation and put the reading down. Therefore, to avoid another case of “Summertime Blues,” 8Lubowitz J.H. Poehling G.G. Summertime blues: ACL rupture, rotator cuff tear, and meniscus tear seem epidemic.Arthroscopy. 2008; 24: 741-742Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (6) Google Scholar we waited for September, a traditional Northern Hemisphere time for “Back to School” 9Lubowitz J.H. Poehling G.G. Back to school.Arthroscopy. 2010; 26: S1Scopus (1) Google Scholar (i.e., “back to the books”). Second, while we believe that the articles in the regular September issue are of our usual high quality, we note that the articles in the supplementary issue are of particular quality with regard to level of evidence or clinical relevance. Third, we acknowledge that we are contributing to your information overload dilemma with this supplementary issue. This fact, combined with the quality of the articles themselves, motivated us to keep the editorial introduction to the supplement to a single paragraph. 9Lubowitz J.H. Poehling G.G. Back to school.Arthroscopy. 2010; 26: S1Scopus (1) Google Scholar In addition, we organized and annotated the Supplement table of contents to highlight the level of evidence and clinical relevance of the articles. We believe and hope that this annotated table of contents is helpful to readers, and specifically helpful as an information overload management tool. Here, as ever, we request and invite your feedback (in the form of letters to the editor). Let us know: Does an annotated table of contents help you to individually edit what you might choose to read in Arthroscopy? But wait, you might protest: “No, thank you, Drs. Lubowitz and Poehling, for waiting for summer to end, keeping the introduction short, and annotating the table of contents. Thanks, but no thanks, because while you have made an effort to minimize our information overload, your effort pales in comparison to the fact that we now have twice as much to read! You can't fool us; you're overloading us.” We respond: Point taken and we apologize. However, we also beg you to consider that as you must individually edit what and how you read, our team of Reviewers, Editorial Board, Associate Editors, and Editors have done our best to help. We believe, and respectfully hope, that you may turn to Arthroscopy because journal content and quality has been tailored, filtered, or should we simply say “edited” to your specific areas of interest. We acknowledge that, yes, indeed, in all aspects of our lives, the amount of available information has dramatically expanded. As such, we hope you rely on our journal as a trusted source of information. We strive to serve so that you need not spend time on unreliable or unknown sources, but rather spend time in concentrated reading of the printed page, thus preserving your cerebral cortices. Information overload? Guilty as charged … but we hope in a helpful manner.

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