Too Much Information, the IHC’s 2022-23 public events series, will engage perspectives from the humanities to consider what it means to live in the Information Age. How does the human brain process the ceaseless influx of information in our media-saturated world? How are the capacities for attention and relaxation, and mental and physical health, affected by “information overload”? With the democratization of knowledge engendered by the internet, more people than ever have access to countless sources of information and misinformation. What role do the humanities play in propagating the skills needed to discern and discriminate between true and false information? On a societal level, how are democratic practices, social movements, national policies and security decisions influenced by the global circulation of data and the ubiquity of misinformation? TMI will also explore questions of access to and dissemination of knowledge, including the ethical use of genetic information, and how the suppression of knowledge in public education poses a threat to democratic governance.
