The bright side of information: ways of mitigating information overload
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2016-0107 |
| Published date | 10 July 2017 |
| Date | 10 July 2017 |
| Pages | 767-775 |
| Author | Tibor Koltay |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
The bright side of information:
ways of mitigating
information overload
Tibor Koltay
Eszterházy Károly University, Jászberény, Hungary
Abstract
Purpose –The complex phenomenon of information overload (IO) is one of the pathologies in our present
information environment, thus symbolically it signalizes the existence of a dark side of information.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the approaches on mitigating IO. Hence, it is an attempt to display
the bright side.
Design/methodology/approach –Based on a literature review, the sources of IO are briefly presented, not
forgetting about the role of information technology and the influence of the data-intensive world. The main
attention is given to the possible ways of mitigating IO.
Findings –It is underlined that there are both technological and social approaches towards easing the
symptoms of IO. While reducing IO by increasing search task delegation is a far away goal, solutions emerge
when information is properly designed and tools of information architecture are applied to enable findability.
A wider range of coping strategies is available when we interact with information. The imperative of being
critical against information by exercising critical thinking and critical reading yields results if different,
discipline-dependent literacies, first of all information literacy and data literacy are acquired and put into
operation, slow principles are followed and personal information management (PIM) tools are applied.
Originality/value –The paper intends to be an add-on to the recent discussions and the evolving body of
knowledge about the relationship between IO and information architecture, various literacies and PIM.
Keywords Critical thinking, Coping strategies, Information architecture, Information overload, Literacies,
Personal information management, Slow principles
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
A pioneer of internet services in Hungarian libraries, László Drótos stated in 1995 that
networks function as information utilities, similarly to a water supply system, with the
difference that on the internet the information is streaming in an ever growing quantity,
it depends on us what and how much we use of it. This requires us to learn ourselves
and to teach others to be able to handle and keep in hand this flood to not to drown in it
(Drótos, 1995). This metaphor says to us that there is information overload (IO) that
is an impediment to efficiently using information (Bawden and Robinson, 2009).
Therefore, its symptoms have to be mitigated. Since the time, when it was recognized that
excessive information impairs performance, and this phenomenon has been labelled
“information overload”, its definitions have not changed substantially (Benselin and
Ragsdell, 2016).
Any treatment applied to IO has to take into consideration that overload emerges not because
of a single factor, but is caused by a mix of several causes. Information-processing capacity and
the nature of the given task or process (that define information-processing requirements) may be
regarded as such causes (Eppler and Mengis, 2004).
David Bawden and Lyn Robinson painted a detailed picture about the dark side of
information, qualifying IO as one of the “pathologies of information”. As they pointed out,
the problems related to IO are real, while they may not be fundamentally information
problems (Bawden and Robinson, 2009). On the other hand, as verified by the results of a
recent mixed methods quantitative and qualitative study, the perception of IO exists even
among varied age groups (Benselin and Ragsdell, 2016).
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 4, 2017
pp. 767-775
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-09-2016-0107
Received 11 September 2016
Revised 12 December 2016
15 December 2016
Accepted 15 December 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
767
Ways of
mitigating
information
overload
To continue reading
Request your trial