Is it really information?

I think it can hardly be disputed that we are, as a society, significantly more informed than we were in the past - and mostly within the last decade.

But it seems that with the plethora of information and its ready availability, the problems may be just as widespread as the benefits. In pre-internet, pre-TIVO times, our society relied strictly upon a few major television or radio network newscasts, newspapers and other publications for their information. The burden of information fell strongly upon the broadcaster, rather than the receiver. They would inform; we would listen and listen well, like eager little children waiting for a favorite cartoon.

But now, amidst our new-world over-media-saturated paradigm, the burden of information falls more upon the receiver than the broadcaster! The consumer must now be responsible for the accuracy and validity of their information, regardless of its source. Whereas once we held the nightly news as a indisputable source of current, correct information, modern information broadcasting is too far-flung to determine absolute accuracy, or anything remotely close to a lack of bias for that matter (take two of the behemoths: Fox, CNN, and the battle between them, for example).

I definitely agree that there are vast septic tanks of misinformation and hasty opinion being touted as truth. The receiver must now sort through a plethora of so-called 'information': the ubiquity of blogs and their coziness with the mainstream media, the uprising of supposedly underground opinions in the form of websites and publications, and the ease with which anyone may self-publish and self-distribute information (not to mention the fact that email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and names are all available to purchase in quantity; you just find the niche you'd like to target, buy a list of prospectives, and fire away!). There is no simple 'let me tune it and see exactly what's going on in the world' mindset anymore. It does not exist.

The ramifications here are subjective. We must become far more active receivers of information than we have been in the past, lest we become parrots of talk-show radio blitzkrieg or quoters of the derivative political afterparties.

So. Positive, negative, or just merely progress? You tell me.