The term information overload was first coined in a 1964 by Bertram Gross, in his book The Managing of Organizations. However, the concept was developedby French philosopher Denis Diderot in 1755:
“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.”
Therefore the problem of ‘information overload’ is not particularly new but many argue that it still persists.
Why?
Could it be because the problem is not information overload and our understanding of the issue is incorrect? Attempting to solve an overload issue is missing the point. Are people obese because they experience ‘food overload?. No – food in of itself is not to blame. People are obese because they experience ‘food over-consumption’ and while the abundance of high-fat, high-sugar may make it easy to be overweight, the mere existence of those foods are not making people fat. Consumption by osmosis? No.
Perhaps, as researchers, we need to address how do deal with information over-consumption?
Tackling food over-consumption has almost become an international past-time and despite tens of thousands of diet books available, they all boil down to the same thing: eat less, eat better, exercise more. Comparably, improving how people consume information will increase focus and productivity, while reducing stress.
Consume information consciously
According to the University of California in San Diego, the average American consumes 34 gigabytes of information a day, though much of this will be devoured unconsciously.
Just like food, people have the ability to choose what information they consume, and some consumption habits are healthier than others. Too much opinion and not enough fact will limit the ability to analyse and evaluate.
Focus – practice makes perfect
An inability to focus or an inability to pay attention for long amounts of time is probably indicative of the fact that you need an attention fitness regimen.
For computer-based workers, the problem seems to always boil down to distraction. Email Inboxes and tabbed browsing seem to be the biggest culprit.
It’s probably because our brains reward us for connecting whether those connections are good or bad.
Try an app like MailPlane that keeps your email in one window and controllable.
Keeping those open tabs at a minimum – anybody want to make a chrome extension that limits the number of tabs that can be opened? – seems like a good idea, too.
If you have any questions related to how to best conduct research, Ask an Expert!
Additionally, indexing hugely affects the success of researchers finding the right results, as detailed by our in-house expert, Carol Hollier:
Good luck!
(Image Credit: Jason Wong at Unsplash)
