Why Online "Noise" is Good For You
Blogs, RSS, IM, Twitter and FriendFeed - the number of sources of sources of information online can feel like it's multiplying exponentially every day. It's easy, natural even, to feel overwhelmed. Especially when we are more familiar with the tightly controlled editorial policies of mainstream media.
The social media space is noisy, though. There are many times when filtering that noise effectively makes a lot of sense (some tools discussed below) - but there are also many times when noise is just what we need.
Experiments in Noise Control
There are many ways you can roughly cut down on the noise in your information stream. More emerge all the time and this is a very valuable direction for services to be exploring. We don't want to argue that noise is always good, it's clearly important to spend some time without it every day.
The most recent entry into the noise filtering scene is probably FriendFeed's new "best of" feature. Late last night FriendFeed rolled out the ability to view just the items most popular with your friends on the service for the last day, week or month. It's something many people have been hoping for and there's no doubt it will prove useful. If you're not using FriendFeed yet, you can check it out and add me as a friend if you like here.
Other services that are good for filtering out noise are del.icio.us popular for a particular tag, AideRSS and Google Reader's overly friendly shared items from friends feature. We'd love to read about your favorite noise filtering tools in comments below.
On the Beauty of Noise
Filtering isn't everything it's cracked up to be, though, and you wouldn't want to live in a fully filtered world all the time. Social media noise is an essential part of learning and living on the web. Hear are some reasons why.
Unexpected opportunities.
Some people call it "serendipity," others call it "passive and opportunistic information acquisition." (Erdelez, see below.) The less limited the boundaries of your scope of view are, the more likely you may be to find things you didn't even think to look for.
Scanning quickly over large quantities of roughly relevant information can turn up invaluable resources, opportunities, context and contacts that you can passively process or opportunistically leverage at will.
Future Needs
It's one thing to find something you didn't know you needed right now, it's a whole other skill to be able to recall information that seemed marginally useful at best in the past at a time in the future when the need for it arises. Who can't remember doing that before?
The ability to recall passively collected information that was gathered purposelessly in the past and put it to use in the future is a particularly powerful form of intelligence. A person with a substantial reservoir of generally relevant information is a great person to have on any team.
Maximizing Recall
Some people worry that being exposed to too much information will lead to not remembering very much of it. Scientists say that's not necessarily the case, though. Sanda Erdelez, for example, wrote the following in her study Information Encountering: It's More Than Just Bumping into Information
A majority of participants in my information encountering study, when asked about their past experiences of "bumping into information," were familiar with the notion of accidental discovery of information and could recall these experiences clearly.
We may be afraid that we won't remember key information that rushed past us in a river of news, but Erdelez argues that when prompted about a particular incident of accidental discovery our memories are better than we might think.
We would argue here in fact that the more total information our minds are exposed to, the more particular items we'll be able to recall in the future. One useful strategy may be to spend some time going through a large amount of information just a touch more quickly than we're comfortable with.
General Knowledge
Beyond simple recall of particular information in the past, internalized noise can be just as useful in the formation of wisdom and perspective as introspection, thoughtfulness and other forms of attentiveness can be. Spend some time skimming, it'll make you a better person. You'll meet new people, learn new things - don't worry, it's fun.
Personal Growth
Serendipitous search in the offline world is believed to be one of the ways our understanding of the world expands. David Pescovitz at BoingBoing writes about Swedish ethnologist Erik Ottoson's PhD thesis titled Seeking One's Own: On Encounters Between Individuals and Objects:
"Ideals of what is beautiful, useful and reasonable," Ottoson argues "materialize in conjunction with the experience of what is available and what is absent or out of reach."
That's more than just a beautiful reason you should read BoingBoing, it's an interesting understanding of the way that swimming through noise helps us become who we are.
Conclusion
Quiet time, time off-line, deep thoughts and long books are all beautiful things - essential to a healthy intellectual, psychological and social life. We argue, though, that the opposite of all those things - online social media noise, is also a great opportunity that deserves to have its worth recognized at a time in history when many of us are struggling to deal with it.
So take some time for yourself when you can, find a nice place to sit with a cup of tea and blow through a few hundred items in your RSS reader. If you can relax into it, it'll help you remember some of the reasons why you love the internet.
Creative Commons photos, Christmas 2007 series, by Flickr user Kevin Dooley.
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I agree with you only if you also know how to manufacture information and create new actionable knowledge - eg. Think.
Posted by: Adam Lindemann | June 6, 2008 3:38 PM
Very well put Marshall. It's true that you actually do bump around between wanting a hard dose of signal and a lighter bit of discovery. I've got some reading to do with the links you provided here. Great post!
Posted by: Hutch Carpenter | June 6, 2008 3:39 PM
I deeply disagree. The web is about ME first and then comes the noise driven by the hype and the false version of truth that is popularity.
Posted by: directeur | June 6, 2008 4:39 PM
directeur, that certainly seems like a valid perspective. i disagree with it in many cases, though.
FeedHub.com is supposed to help people deal with the noise. I haven't used it, but I keep seeing its crawler in my server logs every so often and think I should try it.
Posted by: Devon Young | June 6, 2008 6:18 PM
I was just thinking about this today in relation to a method of speed reading. The standard way most people are taught to read is retarded. We are told to take an extra step and translate the words to there auditory equivalents in our heads. This is why it's so hard to learn another lanuage for older folks.
If you just scan with your eyes and don't worry about actually "reading" in the sense we're used to, you may be surprised at how easily you ingest the info.
This is what I like about "noise." I can just scan through it all and easily increase my knowledge of random topics and my personal growth. Cuz, if I don't grow...how can I take over the world?
Marshall, actually on reflection I think that your post refects a deeper truth that often it is actually true that a certain amount of noise or entropy in the system can lead to creativity and a new insights. This is phenomenon appears to be evident in all natural and man-made systems.
Posted by: Adam Lindemann | June 6, 2008 6:46 PM
directuer, I understand where your coming from. There can often be a glut of "bad noise" out there. However, the popular noise that we want to sift out tends to reach us regardless. The less-popular but oft-desired "good noise," that is, the stuff you discover that enhances your life, needs to be sought out. That's where Mr. Kirkpatrick's description of discovery comes in.
Posted by: Crash Moriarty | June 6, 2008 9:30 PM
Excellent post Marshall. The challenge is to set aside that time to go through the multitudinous feeds. For example, there are many many blogs I don't rush to on a daily basis, in fact physically cannot with time available. Rather, I try to wade through them at some quiet time on a weekend or evening, that seems to work for me. And, can you really afford not to? As you say, it's those unexpected opportunities.
Posted by: Nicholas O'Flaherty | June 6, 2008 9:38 PM
For filtering, nothing (yet) beats FeedHub. I've tried all of the aforementioned alternatives plus some others: FeedHub wins.
BTW, I find that FeedHub works best when both selecting preferred sources and managing memes. It will take a bit of training (mostly by giving FeedHub feedback), but after one month, you'll be thrilled with FeedHub.
FeedHub is the best way to find the best posts among the many feeds that someone may subscribe to. Just import your OPML file, select some terms, let it go. Then rate items (thumbs up, thumbs down) and manage your memes. After a month of manipulating your memes, you'll truly be amazed with FeedHub.
I personally run a few FeedHub feeds (along with some other feeds) in RSS Ticker, plus in my desktop client, Google Reader and Bloglines. But with RSS Ticker, you'll get the best of the best scrolling on your screen. Click on an item and it opens in a new tab (well, that's the way I have it set in Firefox). GREAT stuff!!
Posted by: David Scott Lewis | June 7, 2008 12:17 AM
Minimizing the noise is exactly why I created blern.com. There's definitely value in the "serendipity factor," but most of the time I don't want to wade through all the uninteresting and be shown stuff that is to some degree targeted around my interests. I get my serendipity from friends and online acquaintances.
Posted by: Jim | June 7, 2008 12:27 AM
I totally disagree with your post
I didn't expect an article from you trying to convince us that the online noise is good for us...
Noise creates only blurring "info pictures" [Chaos Theory] so the final result is only... noise for our already busy mind.
If you want to minimize the noise you need serious tools. Google Reader and the other tools you suggested are excluded...
Unfortunately, we have so much info-noise and we have not even one application to handle this situation with a productive way...
Posted by: Stefanos Karagos | June 7, 2008 2:40 AM
Hi
I came her with stumbleupon, that should tell you something about how it filters, or doesn't filter, depends on you frame of reference.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_online_noise_is_good_for_y.php
Posted by: UsoDaNamu | June 7, 2008 7:02 AM
I like the Christmas tree pictures taken with long exposure time. It screams noisy.
Posted by: Dave | June 7, 2008 7:26 AM
I think this is an important post.
It is interesting how differently people react to your view. The web is about "me" and that "about me" is just starting... most of us agree with that.
However, I could not agree more with you. In addition to the "me", we also need to opt out. We need [to actively look for ways] to be exposed to new stuff, even to things that might not make sense to us. It applies to the online and offline worlds of course.
"swimming through noise helps us become who we are" - "it'll make you a better person". Nice.
gabi
Posted by: Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria | June 7, 2008 11:12 AM
When I was reading this post, it reminded me of the often harped on trend of people starting to silo themselves by political affiliation in the US (made even easier with the internet).
As I gleaned from the post, new ideas percolate up from the seemingly random interaction of thoughts. Filters also can't help you discover something before it becomes popular.
... What I'm trying to say, is subscribe to my blog feed :)
Posted by: Nick Gonzalez | June 7, 2008 11:22 AM
Great article, Marshall, and I totally agree. Some of the best tools and resources that I currently use were ones that I never would have known about if I didn't open up to the noise. Blogged this post. Should have made the FP on Digg for sure.
JD
Posted by: JD Rucker | June 8, 2008 1:21 AM
Thank you for your very interesting point.
I fully agree with you. I think, there is also a natural filter of noise which is not looking at our daily flux of information.
I think what makes noise unbearable is the guilty feeling we have to not read everything. But if we takes some times to dive in the noise, whithout feeling guilty of what we have missed, it is just a positive habit. And thus we can have all the benefits you describe.
Posted by: stetoscope | June 8, 2008 5:00 AM
it is all just thoughts
a bunch of tabs open is no different that a pile of magazines by your bed
does any of it help you have a peaceful mind?
hard to see your industry in any kind of context while you are busy writing about it, but in any larger sense, today's post has no meaning
Posted by: gregory | June 8, 2008 11:54 AM
As with most everything, I think it's a matter of balance. Noise is everywhere; sometimes it's serendipitous, often it's not. A world that is overly filtered is lacking, just as one that is not filtered at all.
Posted by: Portland Broker | June 9, 2008 11:34 PM
That's what i do every morning and late night, i grab a coffee and open my google reader and start reading as many feeds i want, i enjoy this process,but it only works when i'm alone at home.
Posted by: Eduardo Sasso | June 12, 2008 3:28 AM