information overload

information overload (uncountable)

1. The inability to process everything one hears and sees; the availability or supply of too much information, or a state of stress which results.

   Synonyms: infobesity, infoglut, infoxication

   • 1990 March 9, Richard Zoglin, “The Tuned-out Generation”, in Time:

     Some news executives attribute this youthful apathy to information overload and the explosion of media options.

   • 2006, Brian Fagan, “The Next 50 Years”, in Archaeology, vol. 59:5:

     But it's often hard to discern the forest for the archaeological trees, partly because archaeology is now so specialized, and also because all of us suffer from information overload about the past dumped on us by the Web, newspapers, TV specials, and all the apparatus of modern global communications.