COLUMBIA, Mo. – Information in the digital age is like porridge in the tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” How do you know what is too much, too little, just right – or maybe not right at all?

The digital age has put vast amounts of information at your fingertips, which is good, says University of Missouri Extension weed scientist Kevin Bradley. What is not good is the confusion from trying to parse out what information is reliable and relevant.

The exponential growth of data available to consumers from 2011 to 2024 can make decision-making overwhelming, Bradley says. Oxford University Press even named “brain rot,” a term describing information overload, as its 2024 word of the year.

The average person worldwide spends six hours a day on the internet; Americans spend more than seven hours a day surfing the web, according to the Digital 2024 Global Overview report.

While Bradley encourages farmers to do their own online research, he also encourages them to seek out sources that are research-based and unbiased. Bradley suggests asking yourself these seven questions about the data you come across:

1. Were there any environmental factors that influenced this data?

2. Is the data illustrated fairly? Are there signs of “marketing manipulation”?

3. Does the data go against anything that is for the common good? Is there mention of any potential environmental implications?

4. Are there statistics shown in the data to back up the information?

5. Was the data produced from experiments conducted locally? Were the experiments repeated at other locations or in different years?

6. Are there appropriate comparisons and control treatments?

7. Who or what is the source of the data? Does the source have biases? Who profits from your decision after researching – you and your farming operation, or someone selling you something?

A 2024 study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher Joana Colussi found that farmers are almost as likely to be influenced by friends, neighbors and retailers as they are by extension agents, conference speakers and field day presenters. Another survey, conducted in Missouri, showed that farmers seek information from company agronomists, seed dealers, chemical retailers and farmers in their area as much as or, in some cases, more often than they consult with their local extension agronomists.

Despite these statistics, Bradley says university extension sources are available to help. Bradley noted that MU Extension has an excellent team of about 20 agronomy and ag engineering field specialists around the state, and there are at least 22 state extension specialists who each have expertise in specific aspects of agricultural crop production. He calls university research “a crock pot in a microwave world” because university researchers are more likely to take painstaking efforts to make sure their data is precise and accurate before it is shared.