INFORMATION OVERLOAD!
Questions:
Whose responsibility is it to "filter" the information available on the web? Should the search engines come up with strategies to increase "precision"(as defined by Nelson's article), or is that the responsibility of the information seekers?
Is there such a thing as too much information?
Is the increase in "noise" to "signal" proportion, as discussed in the Carlson article, worth the added value of pertinent information? In other words, are you willing to dig through more junk to get to more variety of good information?
Article Response:
When I read the statistic that 50% of U.S. professionals repeatedly recieve messages that say the same thing, the movie Office Space came to mind. The now famous question Peter Gibbons is repeatedly harrased with exemplifies the absurdity of such occurences: "Did you get the memo?" He is asked this over...and over...and over again. Similarly, at the last company I was with, we would often receive an email only to receive a subsequent confirmation email confirming that the first was received.. and so on and so forth.
These two articles bring to the forefront the potential problems in the rapid increase, wealth and ease of information dissemination. Many of these "problems" are evident in my own personal life. For instance, my general reading habits have been altered as a result of being exposed to endless streams of information. My focus has become very cursory as I skim over the contents of whatever I may be reading. My eyes automatically search for the big print, bold, italicized words and if it interests me, then I'll delve further. While this is efficient in reading something such as the newspaper, I find myself doing this more and more with everything I read--even in cases where more depth of focus is needed. Similarly, and I know most everybody can relate, with the surge in spam, I delete through my email inbox so quickly that I sometimes miss valid emails. With outlook as my server, it's extremely easy to hit "delete, delete, delete" knowing more than likely the majority of messages are junkmail. Which brings me to another consequence of "information overload": developing harmful assumptions. With so much information available, you begin looking for patterns and shortcuts to manage your more repetitive information seeking tasks quickly and efficiently. Assuming that messages from people you don't know are junk mail, or assuming that websites from unfamiliar sources aren't credible are some ways that I've observed my own habits have changed.
Also, what was interesting to me was the distinction made between data and knowledge in Nelson's article. We put so much work into sifting through all of the "data" and perhaps not enough in synthesizing it as a result. While the availability of data is increasing exponentially, the gain in knowledge may be adversely affected.
I personally don't think there is such thing as too much information. But examining how we are affected by such rapid change and brainstorming more efficient ways of managing it is something that is necessary for benefitting by it's progress.
Whose responsibility is it to "filter" the information available on the web? Should the search engines come up with strategies to increase "precision"(as defined by Nelson's article), or is that the responsibility of the information seekers?
Is there such a thing as too much information?
Is the increase in "noise" to "signal" proportion, as discussed in the Carlson article, worth the added value of pertinent information? In other words, are you willing to dig through more junk to get to more variety of good information?
Article Response:
When I read the statistic that 50% of U.S. professionals repeatedly recieve messages that say the same thing, the movie Office Space came to mind. The now famous question Peter Gibbons is repeatedly harrased with exemplifies the absurdity of such occurences: "Did you get the memo?" He is asked this over...and over...and over again. Similarly, at the last company I was with, we would often receive an email only to receive a subsequent confirmation email confirming that the first was received.. and so on and so forth.
These two articles bring to the forefront the potential problems in the rapid increase, wealth and ease of information dissemination. Many of these "problems" are evident in my own personal life. For instance, my general reading habits have been altered as a result of being exposed to endless streams of information. My focus has become very cursory as I skim over the contents of whatever I may be reading. My eyes automatically search for the big print, bold, italicized words and if it interests me, then I'll delve further. While this is efficient in reading something such as the newspaper, I find myself doing this more and more with everything I read--even in cases where more depth of focus is needed. Similarly, and I know most everybody can relate, with the surge in spam, I delete through my email inbox so quickly that I sometimes miss valid emails. With outlook as my server, it's extremely easy to hit "delete, delete, delete" knowing more than likely the majority of messages are junkmail. Which brings me to another consequence of "information overload": developing harmful assumptions. With so much information available, you begin looking for patterns and shortcuts to manage your more repetitive information seeking tasks quickly and efficiently. Assuming that messages from people you don't know are junk mail, or assuming that websites from unfamiliar sources aren't credible are some ways that I've observed my own habits have changed.
Also, what was interesting to me was the distinction made between data and knowledge in Nelson's article. We put so much work into sifting through all of the "data" and perhaps not enough in synthesizing it as a result. While the availability of data is increasing exponentially, the gain in knowledge may be adversely affected.
I personally don't think there is such thing as too much information. But examining how we are affected by such rapid change and brainstorming more efficient ways of managing it is something that is necessary for benefitting by it's progress.
posted by EstherYu @ 9:45 PM
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