As the song goes, “Breaking up is Hard to Do,” but I think these days, "Keeping Up" is even harder.
I recently witnessed how easily people become distracted in social settings with their phones, emails, text messages, and Facebook and Twitter posts. I wondered if people thought it was rude to see others texting while talking, but more importantly I thought about how easily we can get distracted by the overload of information we have to process every day.
At a dinner event, I also noticed that three out six people at the table were checking their emails on their phones, responding to a text message, or checking their Facebook posts. One of the other three who was not checking her phone became a little annoyed that we were all out to dinner and we were not having a normal conversation, rather we were interacting with others who weren’t even there. She asked, what’s the point of getting together if we can’t focus our attention to those who are at the table? We all agreed and decided to shut out the rest of the world for a couple of hours, at least.
As a result of these and other behaviors, my interest in how we manage information overload grew. It wasn’t so much about the use of mobile devices; it was more about how other forms of communication can invade our space besides the traditional “talking” that we are so used to. Now we are constantly checking email, answering phone calls, texting, blogging, and searching the internet for answers to the questions we must have answered right away. We are multi-thinking and multi-tasking, and sometimes when we are having interesting conversations with the people in front of us, our minds may be wandering to what else is happening outside of that moment.
With great amounts of information, comes great responsibility, but with extreme access to information, comes very little time to manage it all. I’ve also noticed that I am having a hard time fitting everything into my life; I can’t seem to find the balance with work, family, and friends. So sometimes I have to sit back and look at the bigger picture, to figure out what exactly is taking up so much time?
It can’t be the traditional mediums of television or radio, I don’t even know what’s on anymore, but I do rely on the Internet to keep me up with the latest music, or that show I may have started to watch last fall, and how convenient that I can tune in and out anytime I want. I do find myself thinking or researching for work when I’m at home, and thinking about home responsibilities when I’m at work. I also know all about the iPhone, and how great is it that I can access my work emails, personal emails, text messages, and check Facebook and Twitter -- all from one device, at anytime, not to mention all the apps, internet, and the news I must keep up with, and oh yeah, I can still talk too, if I have to.
I am used to my two worlds intersecting. I have worked in the technology field since the mid-1990s; I have adapted to all the trends, and have seen all the ups and downs. I have also accumulated a wealth of information during that time. So to keep myself sane, I’ve tried to organize, compartmentalize, and archive in many ways, so I have burnt CDs and DVDs for storage and backup purposes, I have folders and subfolders on my work and home computers with relevant articles, documents, research work, project work, favorite links, archived emails, and reports, anything that I think I may need later. But, of course, with the overwhelming amount of new information that surfaces every day, it has been a rare occasion that I ever go back to reread anything.
A New York Times article (Lost in E-Mail, Tech Firms Face Self-Made Beast) says that managing the influx of information and interruptions on a daily basis is hurting productivity and an “attention fracture” has been created. But, I wonder, with so many of us who work in the technology industry, just trying to stay current is a project in itself. So, where do we draw the line? Don’t all avenues of information, whether personal- or business- related, intersect with each other and collide? Can you really blame me for wanting to know the latest information regarding technology? It does make for productive project work and interesting social conversations.
As I tried to further research the problems associated to information overload, the resulting information literally became a tangled web. Google gave me over 16,000,000 search results. It used to be a matter of, can we trust this information and is the data accurate? Now, it’s a matter of having the time to sort through the excessive amount of information and figuring out what is useful, now. Wikipedia states that general causes of information overload include:
- A rapidly increasing rate of new information being produced
- The ease of
duplication and transmission of data across the Internet
- An increase in
the available channels of incoming information
- Large amounts
of historical information to dig through
- Contradictions
and inaccuracies in available information
- A lack of a
method for comparing and processing different kinds of information
- Pieces of information are unrelated or do not have an overall
structure to reveal their relationships
I also found that there is an organization dedicated fully to promoting solutions to email overload and interruptions. The Information Overload Research Group (IORG http://iorgforum.org/) helps people understand how to manage information overload and provides communication tips to everyday challenges. They also provide a list of resources (links, documents, research) that can be helpful to understanding the issues with information overload.
Email is definitely a contributor to information overload. How many times have we been overwhelmed because we have to sift through hundreds of emails every day? Not only do we have to manage work email, but personal email as well. We probably thought that using email to receive newsletters, coupons, or store ads would be easier to manage, and although it is definitely easier on the environment, it has become a time-consuming exercise. Unlike sifting through the paper mailers at home, in which we can see them, recognize their purpose, and make the decision immediately if we need them or not, with email, we have to identify quickly what each email is for, read it, archive, or delete it, and we can only hope we didn’t accidentally delete an important one.
With the increased amount of information that we receive through new technological devices, managing our time can only become more challenging. Of course we are interested in everything we read, see, and hear and we want to know things quickly and easily. We want to be able to tell others about the things we learned, how could we not want to be a part of this ever-evolving and interesting world? I am definitely a person who wants to absorb everything and have everything at my fingertips. Unfortunately, the problem lies in how to balance everything else in our lives and have time for it all.
Angela Salgado is a Sr. Information Architect for Fry, Inc.
