Death by Information Overload - HBR.org - The Diigo Meta page

• 06 Dec 09
  

  maximilian yuen
  • in the knowledge economy, information is our most valuable commodity.
  • And these days it’s available in almost infinite abundance, delivered automatically to our electronic devices or accessible with a few mouse clicks
  • 6 more annotations...
  • • it’s not just the incoming tidal wave of e-mail messages and RSS feeds that causes me grief. It’s also the vast ocean of information I feel compelled to go out and explore in order to keep up in my job.
    • Current research suggests that the surging volume of available information—and its interruption of people’s work—can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making, innovation, and productivity. In one study, for example, people took an average of nearly 25 minutes to return to a work task after an e-mail interruption. That’s bad news for both individuals and their organizations.
    • There’s hope, though. Innovative tools and techniques promise relief for those of us struggling with information inundation. Some are technological solutions—software that automatically sorts and prioritizes incoming e-mail, for instance—designed to regulate or divert the deluge
    • dates back to Gutenberg. The invention of movable type led to a proliferation of printed matter that quickly exceeded what a single human mind could absorb in a lifetime. Later technologies—from carbon paper to the photocopier—madereplicating existing information even easier. And once information was digitized, documents could be copied in limitless numbers at virtually no cost.
    • Digitizing content also removed barriers to another activity first made possible by the printing press:publishing new information. No longer restricted by centuries-old production and distribution costs, anyone can be a publisher today.
    • In fact, a lot of new information—personalized purchase recommendations from Amazon, for instance—is “published” and distributed without any active human input.
• 05 Oct 09
  

  Bertrand Duperrin

  Current research suggests that the surging volume of available information—and its interruption of people’s work—can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making, innovation, and productivity. In one study, for example, people took an average of nearly 25 minutes to return to a work task after an e-mail interruption. That’s bad news for both individuals and their organizations.
  
  There’s hope, though. Innovative tools and techniques promise relief for those of us struggling with information inundation. Some are technological solutions—software that automatically sorts and prioritizes incoming e-mail, for instance—designed to regulate or divert the deluge. Others prevent people from drowning by getting them to change the way they behave and think. Who knows: Maybe someday even I will enjoy swimming in the powerful currents of information that now threaten to pull me under.

  informationoverload email technology information

• 01 Oct 09
  

  Christophe Deschamps

  informationoverload knowledge workers

  • It’s also the vast ocean of information I feel compelled to go out and explore in order to keep up in my job
  • Current research suggests that the surging volume of available information—and its interruption of people’s work—can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making, innovation, and productivity. In one study, for example, people took an average of nearly 25 minutes to return to a work task after an e-mail interruption.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • Digitizing content also removed barriers to another activity first made possible by the printing press:publishing new information.
• 09 Sep 09
  

  Vishveshwar Jatain
• 01 Sep 09
  

  Takuya Homma

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