Where does all the information go?

People are taking in huge amounts of information but is it really stored somewhere in the brain?

Since I can remember going on the Internet there was only one thing that I loved to do. Read up stuff. I had that thing with encyclopedias too but it was too bothersome and school books were either biased or very uninteresting. And then BOOM Wikipedia happened. Wired happened. Google happened. Everything went online. All the knowledge of humanity that we now take for granted, that wasn’t the case not-so-long ago. And it changed everything.

But where does it all go?

I can barely remember all the information I read on Wikipedia. I have read almost every biography of important personalities about the topics I am interested in but still I forgot most of it. This isn’t learning, it’s just reading. Like reading a book and getting the emotions that it gives you. But does reading facts evoke emotions? To me yes and I suspect to other individuals too. It would be interesting for some neuroscience experiment to get a real % of the information retention but I guess it’s very low. It’s probably lower than reading a book because a book tells a story and you usually remember the basics. I have no idea if Descartes was a drunk even though I have read his biography because it was just a fact in a paragraph and didn’t make me actually feel something.

Same with news feeds

The most interesting news feed for me is Hacker News. They have implemented a timer for reminding you how long you spent on there because people just get hooked with reading interesting stuff. Especially if the community is for like-minded people the majority of the articles posted are simply very interesting. But it’s the same process, you get an endless stream of information that has no apparent value in your life. Sure, there is an argument that if you are a Founder or Investor for example you get a widened horizon and you can catch up more easily with the world context and where the future is and I agree with that. But this is a side effect and the actual information entering and exiting your brain is just taking up time. So why do people do it? Is it because curiosity is a human trait and it has certain evolutionary effects and can become addictive?

The jury is out. I love doing it but I am increasingly aware of my personal time and how to optimize it and I am thinking that this may not be the best way to utilize it and probably can’t beat book reading. Would love to hear other views on the subject.