Information overload

I have a friend who has recently signed up to an online dating service, he has not paid up his money so he cannot contact the ladies on the web site that have shown an interest in him.

 He can look at the limited data that is on the open source part of the site. He has been inundated with profiles and messages. It has been great for his ego but truthfully it has overwhelmed him as well.

Every time I see him he updates me on the number and profiles, 367 to date, but is frighten to pay up and engage.

Part of his fear is that these are not genuine responses and the other is that they are.

He is overwhelmed by choice.

What I found was amazing was that one of the first questions was on what star sign you are, it seems that my answer, on the cusp of sceptic and sarcasm would not be accepted.

Dating sites are not designed by cynics it seems.

This brings me to what I’m really interested in: there is so much information floating around much of it of dubious quality, so how do you decide what to place a value on and what to dismiss?

We, as a society seem to be suffering from rabbit in the head light syndrome: unable to see what would be in our best interests (get out of the light). So we continue to run within the light of the car, and thereby run harder towards our demise.