RSS and information overload: cure or cause?

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about this topic. I follow a bunch of feeds in Google Reader, and when I consider that the average number of unread items on login lately tends to be running between 700 and 800, it seems like it would be a perfect example of information overload. But I find that it's actually a good way of skimming content. Depending on my whim, I can scan all my feeds at once, or I can pick out a particular one ("Ok, there are way too many unread lolcats. Time to prune."^) Sometimes I give up entirely on a very active blog such as Boing Boing, mark all read, and start from scratch (it helps that Boing Boing links back to its past posts on recurring themes). I am still learning the best way to keep up with my subscriptions, which include news, webcomics, birding blogs, foodie boards, lifehackers, tropical storm updates and environmental news, to name but a few. Plus, with Google Reader, it's all on the web and not cluttering up my e-mail in-box(es) (which is/are mostly out of control).

And that's why I like RSS. I wouldn't argue it serves all of my information needs, but it serves some very specialized areas very well. I get to combine those specialized interests into one "newspaper" customized for my unique tastes (most of my interests are so esoteric that no mainstream publication could ever break even trying to hit my demographic). Sometimes I get general hard news through my RSS feeds, but usually I prefer NPR for that (plus I subscribe to Newsweek). A specialized blog like WorldChanging, however, covers the environment in a much more detailed way than most other sources out there (probably why their blog graduated to being a book as well as a blog).

For some reason, RSS doesn't trigger my "overload" circuits in the same way that too much e-mail or the thought of subscribing to an actual physical newspaper does. I don't know why that is, but that seems to be the case for me.