Some insights about information overload

"Information overload refers to an excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information (Yang, 2003)"

“I’m defining information overload as a state of having more information available that one can readily assimilate, that is, people have difficulty absorbing the information into their base of knowledge. This hinders decision-making and judgment by causing stress and cognitive impediments such as confusion, uncertainty and distraction”

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it"

"Our communication and our attention is going to flow to a few services — the ones that make it easy to have those conversations. Twitter and Facebook seem to be in that camp… at least till something new comes around!"

"The cure to information overload is more information. The power of tags shows that the way to manage information overload is more information. That’s what the doomsayers of the 90’s — Information Anxiety! Information Tidal Wave! — didn’t foresee"

"It's Not Information Overload. It's Filter Failure."


"It’s (the flow) not gonna stop, and the traditional ways information and knowledge have been classified, ordered, made accessible, distributed and stored have had major change visit, as you have pointed out many times. We now need to become, and feel, adept art skimming, dot-connecting, pattern recognition, and deciding well and wisely when to delve more deeply and in more concentrated ways into issue X or issue Y."

"Participating in virtual worlds, making geography collapse, does all that not lead to a dramatic information overload, leading to a nervous breakdown? Well, it is all about pattern recognition. And struggling with information overload is a very good training in making sense of a very complex and rapidly changing world."