The idea of having too much information, or TMI, is strange to me. I've come to realize it's a personal preference, not a general attribute of humans. I've come to realize that "clicking" my ears isn't something everyone can do. (TMI?)

This isn't specifically about TMI in which someone offers too much information about themself, but information in general. The world around us presents us with a flood of information all the time. We've grown accustomed to filtering out information to make it manageable. For example, a building has windows, building materials, lettering, a mailing address, GPS coordinates, elevation above sea level, height, number of floors, number of rooms, number of walls, floor materials, stairs, handrails, rooftop, heating systems, fan blades, motors, electrical outlets, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, . . . let's not dive into the many different arrangements of atoms and molecules that make up a building, or the many frequencies of sound waves, light waves, and types of optical and accoustic vibrations that occur as they interact with the building.

. . . After all, not only do I want to impress upon you how much information is screaming at you from the nearest building right now as you read this, but to shield you from a far greater amount of that information -- because this is my point. It's not really screaming at you. That's why you've filtered it out.

Why would we treat online information differently? When you look at a building, you just see a building. If you have no use for that building that's the end of the story. If you want to go inside, you look for more information -- a door. If you need to go to a room, there's more information to find -- a stairwell and a room number. In going to that room, you don't care about how many steps you take nor which cardinal direction you're facing as you turn each corner. You've filtered out that information even though it's in front of you every. step. of. the. way. It's right there waiting to be known!

The internet is different because it's filled with carefully crafted propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, marketing, slap shock advertisements, click-bait, and other false forms of entrapment by people who want to misdirect us to wrong places. In other words, it's become a literal screaming building filled with flashing lights and crafty people taking us on intentionally misguided tours.

So the issue of TMI is this:

Can we individually develop a habit of filtering out intentionally misguiding information? Should the architect of the building management team be required (ahem, regulated) to prevent this kind of information?
Until the latter becomes a firm reality, we must place the burden of online safety on ourselves.
Learn to develop this habit.
Learn to learn.
Never stop learning.
School is in session 24/7.
There is no diploma because there's no livable graduation from this thing called life.