Information+Overload

=Information Overload=

“Fighting data asphyxiation is difficult but possible… “ - William Van Winkle

Information overload is a term used to describe the abundance of information that society throws at us today. Coined in 1970 by Alvin Toffler, the term is now seen as such an important effect/problem that an article by the New Scientist journal claims its effects are worse than doing drugs. Information overload can apparently lower people’s IQs significantly. It can be seen inconjunction with various forms of computer-mediated communication. E-mail is a form of this. You receive not only dozens of personal email, but even more spam. Also, when researching for information for a paper you can see the effects of information overload. It can refer to, “the state of having too much information to make a decision or remained informed about a topic”. Emmense amounts of information from the past is just becoming bigger and bigger with the new added information available to us today. It soon becomes difficult to dig through it all and figure out what is relevant and what is not.

Much like food, data is good when served in a reasonably sized portion. You become satisfied, but not over killed. Regrettably and despite the fact that we know too much is no good, we habitually do the contrary. We absorb (or attempt to) information left and right to the point of choking on it leading to what William Van Winkle calls “information asphyxiation”. Information overload can lead to more confusion, frustration, anxiety and stress than a lack of.

Even corporate personnel and IT managers feel that in the so-called Information Age, skills for managing information overload is needed. It is said that, “This condition results from having a rapid rate of growth in the amount of information available, while days remain 24 hours long and our brains remain in roughly the same state of development as they were when cavemen communicated by scrawling messages in stone”.

Other Terms:

 * “information pollution”
 * “interruption overload”

References:

 * Winkle, William V. Information Overload. Online at: http://www.gdrc.org/icts/i-overload/overload.html.
 * Information Overload. 2006. Wikipedia. Online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload.