Information Overload - Part One: Diminshing Efficiency

Data is like food. A good meal is served in reasonably-sized portions from several food groups. It leaves you satisfied but not stuffed. Likewise with information, we're best served when we can partake of reasonable, useful portions, exercising discretion in what data we digest and how often we seek it out.

Unfortunately, we often do the opposite, ingesting information constantly to the point of choking on it. The risk of information asphyxiation touches all of us -- managers, Web surfers, even lazy couch tubers.


The most obvious locus of information inundation is the office: e-mail, voice mail, phone calls, meetings, business journals, faxes, memos, manuals, Web research. The list goes on. Far from bringing about the anticipated "paperless office" and reduced work load, technological innovations have increased both areas.

David Shenk, in his book Data Smog, reports that between 1980 and 1990, paper consumption in the U.S. tripled to 1,800 pounds per person. Sixty percent of the average office worker's time is spent processing paper documents. Additionally, "the typical business manager is said to read one million words per week." That's the equivalent of one and a half full-length novels per day.

~Diminishing Efficiency

Information technology, in fact, often diminishes workplace efficiency. Scientific American ("Taking Computers to Task," July 1997) pointed out that despite the $1 trillion spent annually across the globe, "productivity growth measured in the seven richest nations has instead fallen precipitously in the last 30 years ... Most of the economic growth can be explained by increased employment, trade and production capacity. Computers' contributions, in contrast, nearly vanish in the noise."

Blame can be pinned on everything from sound cards to solitaire, that numbing front-desk babysitter.

Also at fault, however, is the medium and people's lack of training in how to effectively use it. When employees use e-mail to communicate with someone 50 feet away, there's a problem. Saving customer quotes in a general "user" directory is just asking for the document to become lost among hundreds of other files. Inefficient inventory software yields frustration where a simple list on paper would do the trick.

The problem continues even outside the office. A Sunday edition of the New York Times carries more information than the average 19th-century citizen accessed in his entire life. Billboards smother our roadways and buildings. In some cities, advertising is even stuck to the sides of police vehicles. (Imagine a patrol car advertising a "run for the border.") Cable and satellite TV offer dozens of channels of meaningless drivel. The check-out line at the supermarket proffers a host of magazines "educating" the reader on such wide-ranging issues as "10 Ways to the Big O" and new photos of a biblical ark discovered on Mars.

We accept all this input with a tired, sometimes even curious, smile.

--William Van Winkle

In Part Two of this series, we'll look at Information Fatigue.