Mr. Murdoch's 65% premium for Dow Jones shares is evidence that the most trusted, authoritative and differentiated news brands and journalism have more and not less value in today's information-overloaded world.

WSJ: A Report to Our Readers

But the current number of blogs is likely to keep on growing, in a web already overloaded with information.

BBC: Blogs became mainstream during the last year

Students already overloaded with information at the start of the semester are being urged to sneeze into their sleeves, wash their hands frequently and stay home if they get sick, Cohen said.

CNN: Swine flu goes to college

Our lives, our computers and our televisions are overloaded with sources of information.

FORBES: How to Separate Financial Fact from Opinion

And while the brain may not be overloaded by 34 gigabytes of brute information a day, it appears that too many of these mental quanta are the equivalent of empty calories.

FORBES: Medialand