Abstract
In this confusing world we need generalists to help us identify some strategic variables and developments in our societies and to suggest directions and meaning. Daring attempts at generalist analysis should thus be welcomed. Orrin E. Klapp's Overload and Boredom: Essays on the Quality of Life in the Information Society stirs up expectations. These are not lowered by what appears to be the thesis in his book. According to Klapp, in contemporary industrialized societies overload of information causes boredom as often as the absence of stimuli. The proposition is not new, but it needs to be repeated and underscored, with the sales forces of new information technologies constantly trying to convince us that the value of information increases with quantity.
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