Overload, situational and ambient

The following is a reposting of one of Rough Type’s greatest hits. It originally appeared in these pages on March 7, 2011.

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” That was the main theme of a thoughtful and influentialtalkthat Clay Shirky gave at a technology conference back in 2008. It’s an idea that’s easy to like both because it feels intuitively correct and because it’s reassuring: better filters will help reduce information overload, and better filters are things we can actu...