Information Overload

‘Information Overload’ is an increasing problem both in the workplace, and in life in general. Those that learn to deal with it effectively will have a major advantage in the next few years. ‘Information Overload’ is when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to process to make sensible decisions. The result is that you either delay making decisions, or that you make the wrong decisions. It is now commonplace to be getting too many emails, reports and incoming messages to deal with them effectively.

The first recorded use of the phrase ‘Information Overload’ was used by the futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970, when he predicted that the rapidly-increasing amounts of information being produced would eventually cause people problems. Although people talk about “living in the information age,” written information has been used for thousands of years. With the invention of the printing press a few hundred years ago, it became possible to deliver written information to large amounts of people. However, it is only with the arrival of modern computers that the ability to create, copy and access huge amounts of information has created ‘Information Overload’ amongst the general population. The root of the problem is that, although computer processing and memory are increasing all the time, the humans that must use the information are not getting any faster. Effectively, the human mind acts as a bottleneck in the process.

‘Information Overload’ is now commonplace in offices around the world. Some of the causes include; widespread access to the internet, ease of sending email messages to large numbers of people, too many people sending reports and information to people who may need to know, rather than definitely need to know.

 

Adapted from an article on infogineering website