'To know about something' isn’t the same as 'knowing something'.
To collect is a reward in itself. With so many sources of content, it’s easy to believe that keeping them will be enough to increase your knowledge. But with time, read articles fade, facts become obscured, or worse, become anti-facts.
That’s why good note-taking matters.
The digital pile of bookmarks isn’t any different from a tangible pile of papers we consider worth knowing.
Amassing stuff to read isn’t reading, and therefore can’t become knowledge.
Shorter cycles of research, reading, and knowledge assimilation are better than long ones.
The fix is to tighten the feedback loop until you balance content-reading with understanding. The more you know about a subject, the more directed your learning can be, reducing waste.