THE IMPORTANCE OF COGNITIVE SELECTIVENESS IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION FLOOD

Civilization changes resulting from technological development are the causes of modifications of life conditions. The effects of technological development are perceived as ambivalent as well as positive, and negative. Psychologists are interested mainly in the latter ones, especially in the phenomenon of overproduction of information, sometimes called information overflow or information flood. This social phenomenon requires from contemporary people the ability of selecting data, their intentional choice, in line with the specificity of the realized cognitive tasks. The competences required to perform this task properly are called metacognition. They involve knowledge of cognitive functioning, i. e. higher-level skills including planning, monitoring, control and regulation of the cognitive activity. The development of metacognition seems to be a major challenge for contemporary education.