too much information

, pI just realized that there may actually be too much information going on in this election cycle. We have at least three 24 hour cable news channels. and 3 major networks, + the public network. And how many newspapers and columnists? And how many bloggers? and how many special interest groups? not to mention the campaigns themselves.

I recently sent a 6 page email to my mom in response to her request for reasons why I support Obama. And she sent me back 11 pages of why she disagrees. And in many cases, I have realized that we have different information and that we have different facts. And that all of those facts and information are spun in completely different ways depending on which candidate you are looking at.

It is simply overwhelming. I didn’t do a lot of citation of sources and to be honest most of my thoughts in my first email were more ideological, so now I’m trying to figure out how much time and effort I want to spend fact checking and searching out the information I was referring to. It is really and honestly very exhausting.

And what I have realized is the biggest part of how we read all of this information is based on perception. What sources do we percieve to be most relevant? Which do we percieve to be most accurate? less biased? who is more truthful? One of her biggest struggles has been the truthtelling from the Obama camp – so will she believe any of the facts I share? On the other hand, I find many of the ads and the stump speeches from the McCain side to be dishonest. There is so much grey area and each candidate is working as hard as they can to paint the other person in the worst light and they will twist any word or phrase they can to do so.

So even information and facts have to be distilled and researched and examined to find out what was the context, what was the background. And I just don’t have the time of day to fact check every single sentence that each candidate and their running mate says. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Politics, if anything, has served to further divide and hurt us. It pits us against one another. It makes us suspicious. And because there is so much freakin’ information out there, the question really is whether any of us will ever again be able to make an informed decision.