INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Are you aware of the cluttered state of the internet and the World Wide Web? I am going to add to the clutter with this blog--but I think the statistics and related studies emphasize the effects of the clutter. Aaron Elliott cites a study by LifeHack that shows a typical social media user is exposed to 54,000 words daily; that's only 63% of the information social media users get. Media content comprises the other 37% of information loaded on us daily. Words, pictures, videos, music--think of all the information we are exposed to from social media alone!

A 2011 study, Extracting Value from Chaos, tells us "the world's information is more than doubling every two years."  The study computes how much digital information is generated and copied yearly. Something like 1.8 zettabytes occurred in 2011. This is astonishing information, and I don't even know what a zettabyte is! As it turns out, a zettabyte is one sextillion (that's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) bytes. Measurements of digital information also include a petabyte (one quadrillion bytes or 1,024 terabytes), a exabyte (1000 petabytes), and a yottabyte (1000 zettabytes). What all this means is we are adding information to the internet in astounding proportions. Think about all the ways we personally and professionally add to the clutter--blogging, social media, news, movies, magazines, company web sites, personal web sites, etc. The Library of Congress apparently sees some of this clutter worth saving; the Library has plans to archive the 400 million tweets that Americans produce each day. As a digital immigrant who loves technology, I find these numbers mind-boggling--400 million tweets daily! And when we think of all the inane tweets we receive--why would anyone want to collect these!

I don't know how to solve the problem of internet clutter, but I do know that too much information can be debilitating on us. Information overload is not a new problem; the term was coined in 1970 by Alvin Toffler. But the amount of information we are subjected to today has grown tremendously. Think about the amount of email we receive daily, the YouTube videos we watch, the social media we use--this may be just the personal data to which we are exposed. Now think about the work-related data we use--reports, web pages, social media, research, etc. It's no wonder information overload can add to our stress. A Reuters study found that 2/3 of managers surveyed found information overload contributed to dissatisfaction with their jobs or negatively affected their personal relationships; one-third of those surveyed thought data overload affected their health.

 

Email overload is easy to experience, as I well know. I receive 150+ emails daily, and I generally work to move them out of my inbox. Merlin Mann (Inbox Zero) gives an interesting Google Tech Talk about how to better manage the email inbox. Mann points out that we need to take care of email immediately--delete, delegate, respond, defer, do. Before I ever watched this video, I began to take actions similar to what Mann suggests. I use Outlook so I can set the program to check for email every hour; some days I extend that to two hours. This alleviates stress for me as I am not anxious about checking every email as it arrives individually. I do not clean out my email as thoroughly as Mann suggests as I do need to see past emails in a conversation, or I need to show that I did send the right information to someone. I sort emails into folders and subfolders and delete several times a day. I suspect many of us are email hoarders, but filing and deleting when possible helps reduce my stress.

Another segment of digital technology that adds to information overload is social media. Facebook, in particular, allows me to stay in touch with former students, friends who live in other areas, and family. I also have a business Facebook page that posts safety articles for cheer coaches and class postings. I am not a Facebook addict and do not personally post often. I only use Twitter for business. I am not a Twitter fan, nor do I feel the need to let everyone know my every move.  I know concerns exist about the negative effects of too much social media. Kross, et al. studied the influence Facebook has on subjective well-being in young adults. Their research shows that the more young adults used Facebook, the more their "life satisfaction levels" dropped. As we connect online, are we disconnecting with people in real life. Before texting, we actually called people to see how they are or just to chat. Convenience has taken the place of real conversations.

Information overload can make us feel stressed; stress can reduce our effectiveness in our personal relationships and our work relationships. Taking a social media break for a few days is a good idea--maybe start with one day if you are anxious about the length of the break! Can we give it up for a day or two? Ignore email on the weekend; turn off the computer or ignore the phone's icon for email. How liberating to know we don't have to check updates, postings, and emails! During the work day, take a few breaks away from the books, reports, or monitors. Look out the window, talk with a co-worker about the weather, breathe deeply and close your eyes. We need these breaks to give our minds a rest.

We talk about overuse injuries in sports, and I think a correlation can be made with the information overload syndrome. Just as we treat overuse injuries with rest and breaks from training or playing, let's take breaks from information exposure. The information will be there when we return.