By ‘Sola Fagorusi
Offices are no longer the rooms or the cubicles from where people work from. In an age where telecommuting is fast becoming the norm, the office is simply a reachable address. I have seen adults on the verge of shedding tears because their phones were stolen. There are equally reported instances of men who have risked death for their unwillingness to ‘cooperate’ with armed robbers by refusing to release their laptops at gun point. The reason is obvious – the gadget is all they have got in terms of working location and facility. Mobile phones, laptops, tablets et cetera are the new form of offices and it will continue to grow because small and medium scale enterprises are also growing in number by the day.
It is from these devices that emails are crafted and sent, it is from them that concept notes and proposals are written, zipped and mailed to the appropriate quarters. For writers, academics and people who work in the knowledge economy, the number of tabs open on their systems most times is more than a score and ten. For the average young person, 24 hours is a long time to be away from an internet connected device. Also called infobesity, information overload refers to a situation where excess information is taken in by the human brain that processing it or having full comprehension becomes an issue. Alvin Toffler, futurist and author of ‘Future Shock’ was the first to mention this term. Information overload is also about information presentation at a rate too fast for a person to process. Information overload is a bigger subject than it was in 1970 when Toffler first hinted at the condition. The deluge of communication facilities and outlets available to humans makes this so.
This is how it happens in part. Your phone chimes and it is a text message from a news alert you subscribed to and pay for. You hear another sound and it’s an instant message from your blackberry application. This is followed almost in succession by your Whatsapp app showing three messages that just dropped from your friend. While you are still checking this, a phone call comes in and you are on the phone for 11 minutes being briefed about an assignment due next week. While at it, you have someone’s call waiting to be attended to. Your Facebook notification alert also drops on your tablet while you have three new mentions on twitter thanks to your earlier tweet of the day. That’s not all. Your television screen is in mute form because you are on the phone and yet you are being communicated to. The news ticker slides across informing you of breaking news happening in your country. The screen is also shared into two by the cable television to allow you see scenes where the news is breaking and the other half of the screen holding news analysis by an expert on the subject. You are done on the phone and your laptop is waiting for you to finish up the mail you were typing some hours back. You remember the link your colleague at work asked you to check out. You try to locate it among the 41 tabs you have opened with thoughts to later read through them. Your system seems to be hanging and then you realise you have also been multitasking and sigh whilst you stand up to get a cup of tea. It’s a Saturday and you still have a lot to catch up with. There is that proposal from office your department is putting final touch to and you still need to check up some information to make the document spruce. Information overflow and load does not get any better than this.
The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) in 2013 explained that – ‘A full 90 percent of all the data in the world has been generated over the last two years.’ The figures are also even overwhelming. Google currently receives over 4 million search queries per minute from the 2.4 billion global internet population. In addition, every minute, Facebook users share nearly 2.5 million pieces of content, Twitter users tweet nearly 300,000 times, YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video content and Email users send over 200 million messages. It is in this maze of information deluge that today’s users have to read through and make sense of. That is the new challenge for the new age.
A few tips amassed from experts can serve as a way out to the challenges that come from information overload. Setting online goals on a daily premise solves a lot of problem. The internet in its simplest form is like a country with several streets and a lot of activities/distractions on the diverse street. This helps to put one in check, otherwise there is the temptation to spend the day moving from one blog to another, answering emails and other new media related activities with nothing productive to show for the day. There is also the need to organise ones social media accounts through the use of filters. Lists on twitter, Facebook filters, RSS and circles on Google+ are means to achieve organisation to the ceaseless drift of information that comes through them. Being selective on feeds to follow, website to read and blogs to trail also serve while new ones justifiably sneak in occasionally.
Other researched approaches to dealing with information overload problems include preparing materials for jobs in advance. The batching of similar online tasks together helps in managing time and task. The ultimate approach is disconnecting (especially mobile data) from the internet for some hours during the day and when back with connection, initiating communication around ones schedule instead of others. There is also the concept of immersion propounded by Bill Gates. It entails setting aside specific time to dig into accumulated links, articles and any other things of cyber interest.
Information overload concerns will continue and will grow with increase in internet access by the world’s constantly growing population. The Future which Toffler’s did not possibly capture is that of videos. With continued increase in bandwidth and reduction of internet access cost, more people will move into video content production using their smart phones and other mobile gadgets. The information overload at that point unsurprisingly will be more of what watch or keep on the to-watch list.
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‘Sola Fagorusi
Sola Fagorusi is a youth development advocate, freelance writer, accomplished debater cum coach. The Obafemi Awolowo University graduate has about 10 years experience in social entrepreneurship which straddles leadership, good governance cum anti-corruption and adolescent reproductive health. The Leap Africa alumnus is also a trained peer educator, a DESPLAY alumnus and co-facilitator. For 2 years now, he has been a technical consultant and lead judge on the Intra-Faith Peace Youth TV Debate Project facilitated by Youngstars Foundation and the British High Commission. To read his full profile, click here.
