Information Overload
1. Introduction
The careful crafting of this essay has been ensured its relevance to the topic above and to ensure interlinking of the various sections. The essay has been thoroughly researched through many articles, focuses, and discussions on the topic above. The end result should be considered a concise exploration of information overload with a direct relevance to modern-day society.
This essay has a direct relevance to the assignments and to the field of Information Studies. It will be shedding light on the problems of modern-day information and discussing strategies and services which can be used to deal with information overload. Given this scope, it is important to continue to consider the wider definition of ‘information’ within the information profession, and not solely modern ICT, as information overload is a problem growing within many formats of information. This essay may also be of interest to the general public, many of whom are information-poor citizens.
In this essay, we will explore the complex phenomenon of information overload, a concept which affects us all daily. We will start by looking at the possible causative factors which create this information explosion, which has a direct relevance to the information profession. We will then go on to consider the people to whom this information overload affects most, exploring both the information-rich and the information-poor. There will then follow an in-depth discussion of the information-rich and the information-poor, and a consideration of the term ‘glut’ and its relevance to modern-day society. The essay will then end with an exploration of the symptoms of information overload, as expressed by Judy and Wanda, and consider ways to avoid and treat information overload in society.
2. Causes of Information Overload
A very important topic mentioned is that more information is not necessarily better information. When a person seeks information, doing research for a topic, they may find a type of information that is redundant or simply too much of the same topic. Most often, they are doing this to solidify the point that they “did not waste time” trying to find information, when in fact this type of behavior is very time-wasting in itself. Too much of the same information can cause mental blocks influenced by the overwhelming amount of information and lead to frustration, compelling users to stop gathering information prematurely.
When there is too much information, information seekers may become excessively stressed and never be satisfied that they have garnered enough knowledge to fulfill their information needs. The author identified a study on competitive intelligence information users and found that they felt information overload made their job harder and caused them anxiety on whether they were progressing too slowly in information gathering or perhaps too hastily, thus missing crucial information. These problems were caused by the diverse information sources, some of which conflict, and the lack of a structured process of information gathering.
In today’s society, information, especially for the basis of knowledge, is being sought after more and more using various different ways to find it. With the age of electronics now shifting into full gear, there is no turning back. These resources can be very efficient in finding knowledge, but they are also heavy contributors to the problems and prevalence of information overload. The author agrees with other people who have similar perspectives and points out that the comparison to drinking out of a water hydrant: you can get all the water you want, but most of it goes to waste. Just like pushing for more and more information overload, all the resources available today are being wasted.
Information overload is a subtheme of the given essay, which is consuming a problem in the information society. The author has identified and defined some of the problems of information overload that plague the information society today. He has used his own perspectives and views on information overload using journals, periodicals, and books.
3. Consequences of Information Overload
The slope of the U and the point of diminishing returns are likely to differ according to the individual and the decision. In the medical malpractice case, it was found that the physicians who were seeking a precedent to help with their decisions had a higher U max than those who were not looking for a precedent. This means that for the physicians with the higher U max, it would take more information for them to say that it was too much. Now, it is obvious that the malpractice case is a very important decision for the physician because if they were marked to have made the wrong decision and caused a worsened state to the patient, they might be prosecuted and lose their license. So the decision makers will want the highest decision quality, and that would mean attaining all the information on the case.
There are many consequences, but the predominant ones are a decline in the decision quality since we have too much information. This results in information that is irrelevant, incorrect, or late, and inadequate information in a timely manner. Information overload has serious implications for the decision-making quality. defines quality decisions as those that are rational and objective, are based on the best available information, and lead to a consistent and risk-free course of action. This is very difficult to achieve when decision makers are bombarded with too much information. It is argued that there is a U-shaped relationship between the amount of information available and the decision quality. As the quantity of information increases, so does the decision quality, but only to a certain point.
4. Strategies to Manage Information Overload
The strategies for managing information overload result from the fact that the amount of information is simply too big to process using the traditional tools of reading and filing. Yet these traditional tasks frame the most common concerns about managing information. There is too much new information to read. Even if you read at great speed, there is necessarily a practically infinite number of old documents that would have to be reread in order to understand the context of the new information. And even if you only read the new information, there is still the need to file it in some way that will make it easily found at a later date. We talk about information overload in the context of reading and writing because the tools for those tasks are easily simulated by computer software. But many other human intellectual tasks are also in principle overwhelmed by today’s information volume. For example, having too many choices is a well-known cause of human anxiety. This is a widely recognized drawback of database systems that organize information with many cross-references. Viewing and choosing among alternatives is a task that is now confronting many kinds of information ranging from web pages to consumer goods. Yet there is no research program on choice overload as a general phenomenon in human cognition. One of the most common frameworks for understanding and managing information overload is economic. This is natural because both information and its opposite are conditions of great value in modern society, and economic reasoning offers simple and powerful models of value and choice. The general idea is to save time by finding and using methods of filtering information so that less of it needs to be processed. This can be done at the production end by suppressing unwanted information before it enters the system. But the far more common approach is to filter information at the consumption end by using criteria that will screen out information of low value. The chief economic frame for information filtering is the idea of rational choice under uncertainty. It leads to the concept of information as a decision variable and filtering methods as rules for making incremental decisions on whether information should be further processed. Unfortunately, the rational economic model often does not work very well in practice. The decision on whether to process information is itself an information-intensive task. The custodial information is about the context and probable value of the to-be-processed information, and it may require considerable new information to evaluate this old information. Moving backwards through a chain of conditional evaluations, it becomes an infinite regress which, if followed to the bitter end, requires evaluating all second-order information in terms of first-order information. Thus, the economic frame naturally leads to an information avalanche, a problem we have not solved but have only made worse by having shifted the information to a higher stratum of value.
5. Conclusion
Focusing on personal information behavior patterns can help individuals avoid becoming victims of information overload. Skimming and scanning the required parts of information sources will save valuable time. Reading, summarizing, and evaluating information will lead to better understanding. Organizing information and keeping only the important parts will save storage space and make information easier to find. Limiting access to information sources will encourage individuals to gather information from the most accessible sources. Lastly, setting priorities and goals for information processing will help individuals stay on track and avoid getting distracted.
In conclusion, information overload in an organization causes various effects. It can be a serious problem for a company as it can cause a decrease in production and ultimately lead to failure. The chronic effect will certainly have a negative impact on the company. This is because the company’s ability to process necessary information is overwhelmed by the excessive amount of information. To rescue a company from information overload, it is important to create an information culture and establish information behavior patterns. Gathering only the required information through selective information gathering will reduce unnecessary information. Establishing an information culture will also increase the effectiveness and efficiency of information processing at all levels of the company, including workers. Effective information processing leads to improved productivity and the expected quality of work results.
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