Information Overload

An International Challenge for Professional Engineers and Technical Communicators

Judith B. Strother, Jan M. Ulijn, Zohra Fazal

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781118230138
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118360507
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Technology & Engineering Research & Skills
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book covers the ever-increasing problem of information overload from both the professional and academic perspectives. Focusing on the needs of practicing engineers and professional communicators, it addresses the causes and costs of information overload, along with strategies and techniques for reducing and minimizing its negative effects. The theoretical framework of information overload and ideas for future research are also presented. The book brings together an international group of authors, providing a truly global point of view on this important, rarely covered topic.

Chapter 1

Information Overload: An International Challenge to Professional Engineers and Technical Communicators

Judith B. Strother Jan M. Ulijn, and Zohra Fazal

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People have become information junkies, and the very tools that cause Information Overload are also the tools that feed their habit.

Jonathan B. Spira
CEO and Chief Analyst of Basex

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1.1 Definitions, Causes, and Consequences of Information Overload

In today's information-driven economy, the ability to efficiently find, critically analyze, and intelligently use reliable information is a major factor, if not the key, to profit making. Ironically, however, overexposure to that critically valuable resource, information, leads to information overload and its detrimental effects.

1.1.1 Definitions of Information Overload

We have all experienced information overload and we know it when we encounter it—but how do we define it? Businessdictionary.com defines information overload as the “stress induced by reception of more information than is necessary to make a decision (or that can be understood and digested in the time available) and by attempts to deal with it with outdated time management practices” [1]. In addition to using the standard definition of “too much information for one person to absorb,” PC Magazine says that information overload includes “the excessively intricate and often indecipherable manuals that must be read to operate everything from a handheld device to a software application” [2].

1.1.2 Causes of Information Overload

PC Magazine cites the oft-quoted observation that “the volume of information that crossed our brains in one week at the end of the Twentieth Century is more than a person received in a lifetime at the beginning of it” [2]. IEEE Spectrum notes that “Information, the very thing that makes it possible to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, or any other kind of modern information worker, is threatening our ability to do our work. How's that for irony? The global economy may run on countless streams, waves, and pools of information, but unrestrained, that tidal wave of data is drowning us” [3].

The development of the Internet quickened the pace at which information could be transmitted and received, and the advent of Web 2.0 went even further. With social networking tools, such as Facebook™ and numerous blog sites, anyone with a thought, an idea, or an opinion and access to the Internet can now become not only an author but also a publisher of information—and Web 3.0 and 4.0 are on the horizon. As an example, a simple Google™ search for information overload results in over 22,800,000 hits, while an article search using the more selective Google Scholar engine yields about 446,000 hits. The searcher is then left to sift through all the results to find the information being sought. While some forms of information and communication technologies provide solutions for information overload, for example through the use of search engines and gatekeepers, the further development of all kinds of communication support devices and software, such as Skype™, Twitter™, LinkedIn™, Facebook, YouTube™, iPhones™, and iPads™, provides additional sources of communication leading to information overload as well.

The general openness of Web communication poses a problem for all information seekers, who face the task of looking for valuable facts in a vast sea of information. For example, social media provide new avenues for corporations to communicate with their supply chain and their customers, but these same media can also engender a flood of feedback that corporations must cope with. Sometimes, businesses have access to so much information that they fail to distinguish between the information they can or cannot access. A commonly reported complaint at Hewlett-Packard was “If only HP knew what HP knows,” reflecting the “growing gap between the potential and actual value of HP's collective intellectual assets...” [4]. This clearly demonstrates that large organizations face the challenge of keeping up with and organizing the volume of information that is produced, sent, received, and archived daily. As Edmunds and Morris [5] pointed out, the main problem is how to deal with the “paradox of a surfeit of information and a paucity of useful information.”

Zeldes et al. [6] believe that one of the issues is that technology and organizational culture have not evolved at the same rate and therefore are often out of sync. Table 1.1 shows what is possible technologically versus what is actually done within the paradigm of most corporate cultures.

Table 1.1 The Chasm Between Technology and Corporate Culture—Between Possibility and Practice [9]

Technological Reality (What Is Possible)	Cultural Paradigm (What Is Done)
Unlimited accessibility of everyone to everyone by many communication channels	Everyone is expected (by managers, peers, and self) to be available to everyone 24 × 7
Sending messages is easy to do and perceived as practically free of cost (monetary or other)	We sanction the unlimited sending of unsolicited messages (“freedom of speech”)
Free, asynchronous access to everyone's attention queues	Interruption-driven, unnegotiated task management replacing plan-driven methodology
Queued messaging is available for most communication modes (e-mail, voice mail)	Expectation that message queues be emptied (including unsolicited messages)
Work from home technology is “as good as being in the office”	No clear understanding, much less a policy, of where to place the work–life barrier
Computers allow multitasking and rapid switching from task to task	Implicit expectation that all people are good at multitasking and can switch rapidly

To add to the problem, much of the information that constantly surrounds today's information seeker is not reliable or comes from limited sources. While the system of careful peer review is still in place in academia, no longer are academic or technical publications the only information source one can find, nor are they the primary source for even highly educated managers. In fact, too often, solid research is not accessed and used inside firms, where employees often depend on vendors or industry information to the exclusion of other sources, resulting in a biased view of the landscape. A practicing engineer, for example, may turn to “The Weld Guru” site instead of doing deep research for his or her needs in technical manuals or reports. Similarly, although news media continue to thrive, news is often broken, not by major newspapers but by individuals on social media such as Twitter and blogs. Commentary about the news, be it political, technical, or economic, is no longer limited to designated “experts”; rather, almost anyone can express opinions via the Web. Thus, the role of the information gatekeeper has been reduced significantly, for better or for worse.

In the workplace, information overload occurs not only when knowledge workers search for information but also when information searches for them. E-mail was once considered to be the efficient and cost-effective replacement for other nonelectronic forms of communication. Now, however, solicited and unsolicited e-mails fill up and clog inboxes, often significantly reducing the knowledge worker's efficiency. Smart phones are like minicomputers that allow employees and executives to receive not only calls and voice and text messages but also digital media, including full-length documents. Computer monitors and smart devices stream real-time business data as well as international news events. In short, knowledge workers are simply bombarded by information that constantly demands their attention. Indeed, information overload creates a problem for all information users, including practicing engineers, technical communicators, experts in information technology and computer science, and managers and business communication practitioners.

1.1.3 Consequences of Information Overload

Information overload “places knowledge workers and managers worldwide in a chronic state of mental overload. It exacts a massive toll on employee productivity and causes significant personal harm, while organizations ultimately pay the price with extensive financial loss” [6]. Hundreds of thousands of hours are lost in a typical organization—up to 25% of a workday—just from workers' attempts to cope with the flood of information [7]. As Spira notes, “Information Overload decimates work-life balance, decreases knowledge workers' effectiveness and efficiency, and causes diminished comprehension levels, compromised concentration levels, and reduced innovation” [7]. In their study of computer-mediated communication, Jones et al. [8] analyzed over 2.65 million postings to 600 Usenet groups. They found that the more overloaded the users were, the more likely they were to respond only to simpler messages, to generate increasingly simpler responses and to eventually terminate their active participation. (For a recent update of computer-mediated communication studies, see [9].) Zeldes et al. [6] added that information overload causes decreased mental acuity, leading to a reduction in “thinking, generating creative ideas, and effectively solving problems.”

To prevent information overload, people sometimes avoid certain avenues of information, thereby missing opportunities. Although it is not easy to quantify these indirect costs of information overload, they add to the already significant direct costs, making information overload an expensive problem that must be addressed. Zeldes et al. attempted to quantify the costs of what they call infomania, “the mental state of continuous stress and distraction caused by the combination of queued messaging overload and incessant interruptions.” Through their research at Intel, they concluded that infomania costs about US$1 billion per year for a 50,000-employee knowledge-intensive company—and noted that this calculation was conservative [8]. According to a Basex estimate, the total cost of information overload to the U.S. economy amounted to almost US$ 1 trillion in 2011 [10].

Resources for managing information overload currently include search engine filters and spam blockers, but not much more. While the computer industry tries to deal with the technical aspects of the problem, knowledge workers cannot do much except try to deal with the overload as well as they can while they also attempt to prevent themselves from contributing to the problem. Considering that end users tend to employ avoidance strategies, it is imperative that communication professionals employ a variety of strategies to avoid contributing to information overload for their clients and other audiences. At the same time, they themselves face the challenges of dealing with the ever-increasing flood of information that constantly surrounds them, increasing their own level of frustration.

Although there has been little solid research on the causes and consequences of information overload, it affects all of us. It can be especially troublesome and costly for practicing engineers and professional communicators who are considered subject matter experts (SMEs) and whom others tend to rely on for information. This volume addresses the needs of engineering and technical communication professionals in both academia and industry by focusing on the causes and consequences of as well as presenting strategies to deal effectively with the challenges of information overload, one of the most pervasive problems of the electronic information age.

1.2 Perspectives on the Concept of Information Overload

Decision makers of all kinds are often overwhelmed with information and lack the time management techniques to cope with the problem. The definitions of information overload given earlier provide a good start for studying the subject, but how do we deal with the elements that make information overload such an international and intercultural challenge for professional communicators in the engineering, scientific, technical, and business fields? To conceptualize the challenge, we consider information overload in terms of information and time management. How can professional communicators assist? In this book, we argue that communicators need to know how their products are processed by their clients to help them minimize and/or avoid information overload. To gain this understanding, communicators must be intimately familiar with the supplier/producer/ writer and client/user/reader perspective. In addition, the intercultural perspective has to be taken into account. Finally, a focus on innovation needs to be maintained to try and manage information overload.

1.2.1 An Information and Time-Management Perspective

If we assume that most consumers of information, for instance, as engineers or business and technical managers, have to find and use information within the real constraints of time to make decisions of all kinds, information overload is reduced to a matter of the management of data (facts without any interpretation), information (data interpreted meaningfully in a comm...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Practical Insights from Corporations
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A Note from the Series Editor
• Contributors
• About the Editors
• Chapter 1: Information Overload: An International Challenge to Professional Engineers and Technical Communicators
• Section I: Causes and Costs of Information Overload
• Section II: Control and Reduction of Information Overload: Empirical Evidence
• List of References for Boxed Quotations
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Professional Engineering Communication Series