Is Information Overload Really a Problem?

I have spoken about how information overload is an issue that is facing teenagers today, but I recently read an article that makes me think twice about it. In "How Kids are Immune to Information Overload", by Samantha Murphy, she makes a point that information overload does not affect teenagers as much as we may think. She makes the point that teenagers are accustomed to dealing with all the information and know to handle it.

Samantha Murphy claims some strong points that convince me, and her audience of adults, that information overload is not a problem, or at least as big of a problem. She includes the "filtering method" to be an approach teenagers take to decrease information overload. Unlike adults, teenagers "focus on what they care about", says  John Barret, director of research for market research firm Parks Associated (Murphy). They are selecting which messages seem to be the highest priorities and then they respond. He also contuniues to say that "some kids receive up to 300 texts a day, but they aren’t responding to all of them....they are selecting which messages seem to be the highest priorities." In making this calim Murphy is assuming that her audience of adults think teenagers are replying or taking in every peice of information that they recieve.

Another claim made by Murphy is that language is huge contributor to minimizing information overload. She writes in her article that Erik Qualman, author of a best-selling book, says "kids these days can get to the point really quick in about 140 characters or less because of these new tools." New tools being ways of manipulating language and abreviating words. Here Murphy is assuming that her audience does not know how to keep a conversation "short and sweet." they are lacking the skills to do so.

In this article, Samantha Murphy makes some claims that show how information overload is not affecting teenagers, but in fact is affecting her audience more. This is because they do not have the tools or knowledge to go about handling all of the information and Murphy assumes this throughout her article.