A similar thing is now happening relative to e-mail. He says we will be surprised to learn that there is no important consequence. He simply doesn't understand what is going on. I get valuable e-mail all the time. I believe that most people, like myself, would only like to receive more e-mail, solicited or unsolicited, about things in which they are interested.
Information comes in like water from a fire hose, and that does threaten to become overwhelming.
But the future belongs to those who can manage the water flow, not to those who shut it off. Right now, the tools for managing the flow are poor. The number one tool is the mail filter capability on many mail reading programs. For mail with an ambiguous subject or unknown sender, my goal is to spend less than one second per item deciding whether or not it should be deleted. Sixty unread mystery messages, sixty seconds to prune the list.