Thursday, January 13, 2005
Information overload
Like Anjo I made some slides on information overload.
Information Overload
What is the problem ?
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Information overload is a form of cognitive (over)load - •It comes from having to filter and judge more potentially useful information than a person can handle
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Corollary : the Less is More principle: –
There is a point where the extra benefit of providing more information is negative because it increases the cognitive load (cost) of getting at the more useful information. –
The cost of not knowing may outweigh the cost of finding out. Examples of Information overload
- Overflowing mailboxes
- •Google queries with 12000 hits
- so many (e-mails, papers, reports, meetings, conferences, blogs, documentation. memo's) to read/attend that there is no time to think anymore
What causes Information overload
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- Too much too insufficiently relevant information which technogy makes too easy to make available in ``raw'' form.
- Anxiety to remain "in the loop'' and social pressure to keep people "in the loop".
- Insufficient context: Judging and interpreting information is harder if you don't have the context of the producer. People often don't notice because they think the context is ``obvious'', and it is hard for Technology to preserve the context.
- many children will explain things by giving an example. Sometimes giving an example seems childish but are good examples undervalued ?
What is the Result of Info overload ?
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- causes stress
- People think they ought to know because they potentially can
- Creates defensive strategies
- "Better" to stop looking for info
- "Look under the lattern for the lost key" i.e. only look where you can still see through the mess
- spreadsheet syndrome : the world is what my spreadsheet says, if that fails make the world conform the spreadsheat
- Loss of oversight
- Hard to distinguish details from the essentials
- time loss
- how much on what actually ???
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These are my personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
