In a way, this is kind of a follow up to my last post. 

Alexander Van Elsas makes a what is sadly a very ironic post in regards to the noise being generated by the Web 2.0 world and how he can't keep up with it.  What makes it ironic is that the post itself is a rambling 1,550 words (a little over 2.5 pages). 

Now, before I get to my point I've paraphrased his post below.  I encourage you to read the paraphrased version, and then go and read the original.  What you'll find is that the insight shared is exactly the same.  Here's the (paraphrased) quote...

Social media allow us to interact over content, anywhere, anytime. And we love it. Interaction is what makes web 2.0 valuable. While typical users are just catching on to this trend early adopters often use 5-25 of these web 2.0 services.

One such service, FriendFeed, is becoming a favorite among early adopters. It allows users to share content via RSS feeds and then allows those users to comment on each item. Friendfeed then attempts to (re-)orgainze that content to allow you to find interesting items from those you follow.

While I can see why people enjoy FriendFeed for it’s engagement, better discussions and better content I find the discussion tends to stray (especially when people who haven’t read the original item get involved). There are other services that allow you to share all kinds of things, from Travel Plans to Multimedia, but while that’s addictive it can also be overwhelming. I’m not alone in this, search for “noise” or “echo” on Friendfeed and you’ll find many people dealing with the same problem.

As a side step this overwhelming amount of content makes it really hard for good content to stand out which leads blogs to post sensationalist stories (with accompanying headlines) in an attempt to get attention. This is where Social Media is quickly hitting our human limitations in that there is only so much content we can swallow.

One of the main weaknesses of most aggregators in my opinion is that there is too much unintentional sharing. We don’t just share things we find really important, we share anything. And worse, we don’t share by sending each other something specific (intentionally), but we share RSS feeds making the act of sharing unintentional (or maybe unconscious). As a result the stuff I might be really interested in gets buried under a whole lot of unintentional, unfocused and mostly uninteresting content. This exact same pattern developed in e-mail which started with a few intentional mails directed specifically at individuals and ended up with people CC-ing everyone (which made mail box rules a reality).

We need trust filters, noise detectors, blockers, friend feeds and rankings, all kinds of technical solutions to stop all that useless content obscuring the good stuff from us. But we are ignoring the fact that the underlying principle of sharing is the cause of all this. By using RSS which as a technology is truly great as a sharing mechanism, we also accept that we get endless streams of unintentionally shared content.

1. I see everything as a river of content. It passes by all day long, and whenever i feel like it I dive in. I spent limited time in this social media river and am not concerned what I miss when I get out again. the river doesn’t dry up, there is always something else to be found
2. I try not to share too much, only the things I myself really find valuable (this is always hard to do)
3. I actually read long blog posts and try to provide my thoughts if I feel I can contribute. I haven’t visited sites like TechCrunch in ages. I’m not interested in any post that has a title of “breaking news” as much as the impact it has on me and others. That’s why I follow people like Rolf Skyberg, Steven Hodson, Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelley, Chris Messina, Zephoria, Jonathan Harris and many more like those (sorry guys, can’t fit you all in here).
4. I don’t comment or like endless streams of content (sorry guys). It’s not that I don’t like many things, but I do feel that I need to be reluctant to join in every discussion. I have an opinion about many things, but I’m by no means an expert on them. Instead of adding more noise to the river, I try to interact in those places where I feel I can contribute.
5. I write long blog posts myself. Maybe it ads noise too, but my intention is to contribute where I feel I can. I read great stuff from others, so I feel I need to pay back by presenting my thoughts.
6. I try not to share too much, only the things I myself really find valuable (this is always hard to do)

This is how I deal with my human limitations in social media. How do you deal with it?

I honestly think the above is still overly long but to make the point I had to include every one of his points (even if they seemed unrelated to other points in the piece).  To hammer the point home, here's a graphic to show just how much I managed to cut off his original post. 

My point here is a pretty simple one, the problem with content overload is in large part due to the content creators having no respect for the reader's time.  Be that in the form of making a repetitive comment, tweeting every little whim that enters your head or rambling on for 3 pages when you only have about a page worth of actual thoughts the end result is the same.  People are overwhelmed by the number of words while getting very little actual content. 

Let me be clear, I'm not saying anyone should stop themselves from saying something they need to say.  Just that they should say it in the most concise way possible so that it has a better chance of being read.