Today, practically everyone is more informed than ever even the most informed person was a mere 25 years ago yet, paradoxically knows a smaller percentage of the available knowledge.
The researchers noted that information overload is not a new phenomenon. Many studies suggested that information overload became a serious problem towards the end of the 19th century with arrival of the telegraph, the expansion of transportation networks and the rapid growth in the volume of paper documentation.
As advances in information technology and communication supply us with information at an ever accelerating rate, the limitations of our brains became all the more obvious.
Boundaries are defined no longer by technology but our own technology.
There was a time when people only had to cope with telephone ringing in the office and e-mail delivery once a day.
Now the people have e-mail, faxes, Blackberries, PDAs, cell phones, Instant Messaging, pagers and a continuous stream of mail from many postal and delivery services.
Information overload occurs when the rate of information flow into a system and/or the complexity of that information exceed the system’s processing capacity.
Information overload
