One thing is for sure, It is impossible for me (only one person) to manage the never ending news in e-learning for example. But many people in a network following news in e-learning can manage well I think .
Another example, to rembember birthdays used to be a problem for me, Facebook network helps me manage -no longer a problem.
It seems to me that finding the right networks/collaboration tools and then trust and rely on the network(s) rather than just myself for managing information, is important nowadays.
Information (for example a newsl in e-learning) will so to say, live in the network "memory" shared and remixed.
So, a lot of information flow nowadays = reliable networks become very important
(Totally different thing: If you are interested in how eyes move across information on blogposts read this)
The picture below is from http://images.nbii.gov