I don’t know what you are talking about.

We are living in information bubbles that are filled with noise. Soon we will be unable to understand each other.

No, you are not getting old, it’s getting harder to understand each other. In the age of smartphones we are communicating faster and with people who may have a complete different setup.

Also there is so much noise. The amount of data that is poured into the web is staggering. But how much is that really? To put things in perspective let’s compare some numbers*

Globally speaking

In 1974 there were 4 bn people on the planet. If nothing extraordinary happens, we’ll hit 8 bn in 2024. Most predictions say, this development is unsustainable and birth rates in the developed countries have plummeted, so humanity is estimated to peak around 9bn in 2050.

Today we’re just below 8 bn people, ~5 bn people are in working age, the global labor force is ~3 bn people.

How much data is poured into the Internet

2020: ~59 Zettabytes (59,000 Exabytes) [IDC’s Data Age 2025]
2021: ~74 Zettabytes (74,000 Exabytes) [IDC’s Data Age 2025]

With some extrapolation we can estimate a daily growth of data in the internet of ~60 Exabytes/day as of today.

How much Information is stored in a human

A human genome contains about 2,85 x 1⁰⁹ base pairs, that’s just ~1,4 GB.

If we count all people today (~8bn), the size of all humans genomes
put together is ~10 Exabyte.

The physical memory capacity of a human brain was testified to have equal to 2.5 petabytes of memory capacity. (*Scientific American)

Computational neuroscientists estimate effective human storage capacity somewhere between 10 TB and 100 TB. (*Slate)

In writing, people can consume around 200–300 words per minute for comprehension, but this number can vary based on the complexity of the text and the reader’s familiarity with the content.

The average daily media consumption varied significantly across different countries and demographics. However, a report from Nielsen indicated that American adults spent about 11 hours per day interacting with media in 2020. This figure includes television, radio, smartphones, and other electronic devices. Which is a shocking 46% of the day.
(The broadcasting companies possibly over-exaggerate their reach).

Data from a 2019 report by Zenith indicates that people in India spent an average of approximately 3.5 hours consuming media each day.

(*Let’s keep in mind that these are very rough estimates and the figures could vary due to a multitude of factors.)

The signal-to-noise-ratio is getting through the roof.

Even if we make very optimistic assumptions about our ability to parse information it is very clear: we have already overloaded the human bandwidth of information processing.

But humans also have built skyscrapers and tunnels under the ocean. We went to the moon. Because we are able to use tools. So — in an neverending arms race — we have cultivated sophisticated techniques to sort the wheat from the chaff: spam filters, social media algorithms and tailored news feeds.

But the growing deluge of information starts to clog the filtered channels. Business ventures, ad companies and bad actors try to punch holes into our firewalls every second, to grab that little piece of your precious attention span.

Separate bubbles

When everybody sitting in a personal bubble, people start to give their attention to different things. Everybody has an individual fingerprint of interests, and the more content is put into those bubble, the less they will overlap.

There are still things that bind groups together. If a family member gets sick, everybody does take care. People who work in a company together, attend a live concert or simply spend time together offline will share something. Whatever shakes the news cycle might get a glimpse or two.
Apart from that, If things are not immediately dangerous, they don’t feel relevant. Who cares about politics in far away countries, who needs to know about a person getting another award for being successful. And what does the call center guy want from me exactly (It’s not that i don’t want to invest in his proposal but I simply don’t understand what he’s talking about.)

We’re living in an informational multiverse, where everybody looks up to a different sky. This is bad for society and for personal relations. If a big part of your day is happening in your personal media bubble there is not very much to talk about.

So, what is to learn

Stop creating noise and try to create useful information.
Respect the time of other people.
Don’t disconnect.

If you talk to other people, be aware that the other person is not in the same information bubble as you are, not even in the same universe.
So always start your conversation creating common ground.