I just recently came across some astounding numbers on the amount of information overload available to those who surf the Internet.

According to Pete Cashmore,  a networking and technology columnist for CNN, social networking fans are flooding sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube with more information than anyone could possibly read.

Twitter has approximately 25 million “Tweets” posted per day according to Cashmore.

Facebook users post around 45 million updates daily.

YouTube says that 20 hours of video is uploaded to its servers every minute.

Seems to me that it is time for a lot of people to step away for the computer, take a deep breath and go outside.

That demand has social network site managers scrambling for better and faster ways to channel information.

Information is a wonderful  commodity and I’m as guilty of being a Twitter-Facebook-YouTube fan as the next guy.

I even contribute to that volume of information on the Internet. As a journalist, my job is to  provide fresh and interesting information to our readers at The Daily Journal and on our Web site.

But at some point we all need to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine.

This weekend promises to be perfect for some personal time at a local state park or forest preserve.

There is still plenty of fall color to enjoy. There is also plenty of good fishing, hunting, hiking, cycling and camping opportunities to be found at places like Kankakee River State Park, the DesPlaines Fish & Wildlife Area, Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie north of Wilmington and forest preserves across Kankakee and Will counties.

Maybe clearing the cobwebs will even help absorb more tweets, updates and videos when you go back on-line.