The Publisher Says: How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Sunstein argues that government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general "right to know" but when the information in question would significantly improve people's lives.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: How many times a day do you have to fill out a form of some sort? How many forms does it take for you to interact with your bank, your local government, your vendor of choice for whatever gotta-have-it you gotta have today? I know most of us don't read the Terms of Service, and even if we start to, they're written in legalese to discourage all but the most bloody-minded to give up, scroll to the bottom, and hit "I Agree" even though you're pretty sure you don't.

Autocomplete makes some forms tolerable and password managers make others easy enough to forego the usual "do I really want to sign up for this?" soul-searching. But it is all information...your information. You are your information.

Author Sunstein (Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America, Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide) was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, as well as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago Law School; he is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. In other words, this is someone who really knows what information is used for, and has an unaralleled grasp of the costs that gathering, storing, and manipulating all this information costs at every end of the transaction.

What this book did for me was to make me think through the mindless "I Agree"-clicking I do when I am online. Service providers are required to disclose things to us for a reason, and it isn't *our* protection. Author Sunstein doesn't provide panaceas or one-size-fits-all solutions to the issue of information overload. He offers a considered, informed insider's look at how the constant demand for your information, the constant barrage of their legally-required information to you, leads to the fatigue of indifference.

This doesn't make it sound like a #Booksgiving gift. It should be one you gift yourself, but as the demand for and deluge of information grows more and more overwhelming, it's a great time to think of the consequences as we head into the presidential election cycle of 2024. Your politically active pals could use this readable, thoughtful treatment of the complex issue of how much is too much information...in or out...and how to manage, parse, and organize that information as presented to you.

Valuable information (!) for your engaged, aware friend. ( )

Too Much Information: On Warnings, Labels, and Enjoying Life by Cass R Sunstein is both a thoughtful and entertaining look at whether requiring disclosure (primarily) falls into an area of too much for our own good. He seems to come down firmly in the "sometimes yes, sometimes no" category intellectually.

While there are a lot of facts and very interesting anecdotes throughout, I found that the most important aspect of this book was its ability to make me think more carefully about the topic. For readers who mainly want to understand the pros and cons of full required disclosure of information, from basic facts (nutritional info) to opt-in/opt-out nudging, there is plenty here to satisfy you.

While I certainly learned a lot I was unaware of I found that rather than sitting back and thinking about the specific facts I had just read I was incorporating the ideas into my own feelings. I do lean toward more information being available, even to the point of governmental regulations on many things. I would also be comfortable with much of that information being easily accessible but not necessarily part of packaging (or at least not prominently displayed). I'll use nutritional information as an example since we are all familiar with it. For many, such information is extremely important, whether because they are weight conscious or more broadly health conscious. So requiring that information to be available serves a purpose for many people. Yet for many it can also take the fun out of "treats" that they already know aren't healthy but they indulge on occasion (movie popcorn is what is mentioned in the book). I think having the information available is more important than not having it. I also wouldn't mind if it was less prominently displayed.

My reasoning behind hesitantly condoning government regulations on making information available is that without it I don't trust corporations to be conscientious about what goes into their products as long as they can sell it. There are enough cases of companies, and even entire industries, willingly and knowingly poisoning their customers to make a profit that I do support requiring disclosure. That said, such disclosure does not have to be on every package, just available for the consumer to find easily. Between conscientious consumers and investigative journalists, and in some industries government approval, the vast majority of harmful additives or engineering practices will be avoided. Not a foolproof system but one that minimizes harmful effects while minimizing information overload.

The book is far more than what I got on my soapbox about, which makes it a valuable read for anyone who cares about too much information, whether being shared with us or being accumulated from us. I will leave that other soapbox for another time.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Is there too much information out there? Is too much information demanded of us? These are the two pivotal questions Cass Sunstein treats in Too Much Information. He’s a good one to ask them, because President Barack Obama placed him where he could see and recommend changes in the way the government deals with the public. Nothing has changed, however. It is bad and getting worse.

It is not easy to slash and burn here. There are impossible paradoxes to consider before simply saying there is too much of both. One example Sunstein gives is the Health Department asking for so much information from patients it could be discouraging women from getting abortions. For many, this is a travesty. For just as many, this is a blessing. It is the patient, naturally, who loses.

The government does ask for a lot. So much so it can be confusing when not impossible to comply. Loans are not made, people are distressed, and progress is held up. Sunstein shows that the federal government forces the public to consume nearly 10 billion hours a year filling out its forms. To no one’s great shock, the IRS leads by a mile of totally unproductive time consumed.

The Paperwork Reduction Act and the office charged with reducing paperwork are, if I may, paper tigers. They have no way to force or enforce. There is no mechanism whereby a citizen can sue over the abusive and excessive demand for data . Sunstein says “Administrative burden can impose excessive costs (north of $200 billion), frustrate enjoyment of rights, and prevent access to important benefits of multiple sorts. The $200 billion figure greatly understates the actual impact, economic and psychological.” Is information overload worth $200 billion? (Is it crazy to bother trying to put a figure on it?)

Do government and healthcare need all that data? Do they make any use of it at all? Can’t they prepopulate forms since they already have so much of this data, several times over? Sadly, these are questions for the ages, not for immediate action.

On the other side of the coin is the flood of data everyone deals with daily. It has changed the way we live (Facebook, Twitter…). And made it more complicated to get through a day. Everything comes with terms of use, terms and conditions and privacy statements. From the coffee pot to the car and everything on the internet. There isn’t enough time in a day to read them, let alone digest them or make decisions based on them. Just because a company has a privacy statement on its website does not mean it shields users’ privacy. It might very well admit to selling all the data on users to all comers, repeatedly. Customers can’t know unless they read the policy. And when a simple search leads to an answer on a web page, the very last thing anyone does is stop to consider the privacy policy before reading. It’s a bizarre system.

Sunstein cites numerous studies showing, among other things, how unhappy services like Facebook make users feel. He asked study participants how much they would pay for the service if they had to, and also how much money they would accept to drop it completely. It is well known that people value what they have far more than what they would pay if they had to, so the book doesn’t lend itself to any sort of insight or direction on this issue. All it shows is the lengths Sunstein goes to in examining his topic. Too much information doesn’t clear the air.

Then there’s information that is useless precisely because it is offered. If a financial advisor admits to a conflict of interest, he is suddenly free to advise a client on his admittedly biased choices. This is called moral licensing. It empowers the dishonest and puts the customer in a hole. This is too much information because the advisor should not even be allowed in the room. Empowering him like this is (or should be) criminal. But in our system, the confession is off his chest and it’s now the customer’s problem.

There is a lot of information no one asked for, like the number of calories per plate on a restaurant menu. He calls this “ruining the popcorn,” as in: what if there were printed warnings about how fattening cinema popcorn slathered in chemical butter really is.

On the other hand, this is precisely the kind of nudging Sunstein has backed in previous books. The way to get people to change their behavior without them feeling they’ve been denied a choice. Let them opt out rather than be aggravated trying to subscribe for example. Show them the calorie counts and maybe they’ll look farther down the list.

Another nudge would be to list companies by their privacy scores from most private to least, rather than looking at a list of companies and trying to determine who is better than whom. We can definitely nudge our way to making information actually useful instead of just more.

In ruining the popcorn, Sunstein brings up the issue of hedonic choice. People make choices for pleasure, and denying them their pleasure can be an infringement of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But then, what to do about an ex-Marine who is used to killing people at will? That sort of thing is frowned upon back home, which leads to a lot of anger, frustration and unrequited hate. Yet that is basically the argument of smokers or anti-abortionists, who demand their choice be imposed on everyone, despite all the information, evidence and opinion to the contrary. Personal freedoms and information often don’t work well together. Hedonics can really the muddy the waters of information glut.

There is also a cost to all these laws, notices, policies and so on. Billions. Restaurants need to calculate calorie counts, for example, and revise them with changes in recipes or items or weights. So Sunstein asks the fairly ridiculous question: how much would you pay to have warnings put on cigarette packs and wine bottles? Because in a real sense, you are paying anyway. How much better off would society and consumers be without those hidden costs? Or without those informational notices at all? There’s lots of food for thought in Too Much Information.

Sunstein‘s writing walks the talk. He is economical, direct and very easy to read. The book moves quickly and covers a lot of ground. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide any solace. Life always gets more complicated, never less. This is where we are today. Deal with it.

David Wineberg ( )