Information Overload? AS exclusive or not?

Post Reply New Topic

What do I mean by Information Overload?

You study something of interest. It is immense in volume. On one level you can comprehend all of it as a singe glorious whole and it almost melts your brain, but when you do that, you see "things" that others seem to be unable to pick out.

The trade off is that trying to detail what you see likewise starts to melt your brain.

Okay, maybe that's too vague. I studied Political Science and Mass Communication as Bachelor level coursework, both majors. Graduated with honors. I went on and completed law school. With that knowledge, I "see things" that others seem oblivious to. They are as obvious as the nose on my face. However, if I was to try and explain the things I see to someone else, I'd need HOURS to detail how it all comes together and I'd have a very hard time focusing on all the little dots that my brain connected together to make the pictures that seems obvious when you step far enough back.

It's one reason I try not to get into debates on the Internet (or in real life) with most people. Everyone wants me to PROVE my assertion with FACTS in 5 lines of text or less, which is near impossible, as they don't want to do their own research to confirm what I assert. You can't cram years of study and experience into a single paragraph with any real documentation. Makes one wish there was such a thing as a Vulcan mind meld.

Still, aside from law, there are topics law-related that interest me...one being the sovereignty movement. To understand that movement, you really have to read a lot on the history of the laws in existence and the way government works, both legitimately and illegitimately. The volume of it is overwhelming, but when I grasp it as a whole, patterns emerge that are so clear they make perfect sense, but to try and concentrate on the "trail" that brings that pattern together, I get intense headaches.

Does any of this makes sense?

I agree with with you, generally, because that's the way I work and thinK. But is it exclusively an aspie quality? I don't know, and I don't think anybody else does. Also, "information overload" usually refers to the difficulty of picking out what's important from the vast flood of data now available, and of making sense of it. I wouldn't call my burn-outs information overload. I burn out because I immerse myself so deeply in a topic and its analysis that I eventually need to step back and take a breather. If I can't do that consciously, then my brain signals "That's it, enough, no more. Checking out for a short vacation."

My talents are in seeing the patterns, and discriminating between the trivial and relevant, and then doing a deep analysis. Supposedly, that's a gift of Asperger's, but until we know more about neurological functioning and how it does or doesn't differ from "neurotypicals," and also something better than just anecdotal "proof," I'll sit on the fence.

Yeah. That's what exhausts me.

I can "see things" that others can't, and in some way it's awesome. But my inability to go into detail when I try to explain it to others because of how overwhelming it is makes me feel like the things I see are "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY."

I interned at a law practice in law school, and when I reviewed cases for the attorney, I "knew" things but when I went to recap the cases, I had a hard time articulating what I saw because I was certain that I saw what I saw, but I couldn't throw together the individual points that made the picture. I was most always correct in my interpretation, but knowing what I knew and having the ability to articulate it were two different things.

This has a much to do with university as much as autism. Anyone studying similar topics to yours who takes it seriously is usually aware of how all ideas are seemingly supported by other ideas.

Put another way, there are usually two types of students, those who see writing essays as merely trying to put in enough to reach the word count and those who see essay writing as a constant battle of editing and re-editing their ideas until they finally fit into the word count. Initial drafts for me were always at least 25% over.

However, I've always struggled to put everything together even more than most, I totally agree that all the small parts make sense but trying to see it as a whole really is an information overload. I never linked that to autism but that does make a lot of sense.

Can't say anything else than, agree...

I know exactly what you mean.

For years both my mother and I thought I wasn't naturally a systemic thinker because I can't take in too much information at once, I feel overloaded and don't manage to take in anything. But if I take things in one at a time in linear fashion I'm completely fine.

I'm also utterly rubbish at explaining a complex set of facts simply. Or explaining a generalized picture.