We’ve all heard about “information overload” – the e-mails, texts, Tweets, Facebook posts, phone calls, RSS feeds, and news clips, sometimes hundreds every day, that flood us with information that ranges from the trivial to the critically important to the dangerously distracting.
This flow of information can be more than just overwhelming—it can also produce psychological effects that are backed by scientific research. So says an article in Newsweek titled “I Can’t Think,” that examines the problem of Information overload and its ability to completely devastate the brain’s capacity to determine what’s important.
According to author Sharon Begley, studies show that unconscious thought is critical to decision-making, and this can only be achieved by “removing yourself from the influx,” or dealing with information in organized batches. But who can arrange the overload into compressed batches? Who can provide a focused stream to the people who need it, and save us from the fire hose-effect that washes away clarity? In a time of astonishing growth, the world demands distillation, organization, a black and white idea of what’s essential or not.
For SLA members, overload = opportunity.
Read the full article at http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/i-can-t-think.html
Ready to continue learning how you can address these issues within your organization? View a webinar replay from SLA's Click University: "Managing Digital Information" and "Internet Practices & Web Performance Improvement."
