Info Overload: What's the deal?

Community
1

Read an article from the Boston Globe today about how “info overload” has existed for awhile now.

Made me think…what’s really the problem with information overload anyways? Is it really the overload part? Or could it be one of these related issues:

  • data in too many places (and trying to aggregate them all at once)
  • data is too complex (maybe why Twitter is so popular)
  • hard to remember where data came from (we feel OK w/ all this info - just as long as we know where it came from and its relevance)

I’m sure there’s other related issues. Hoping you can expand on what your thoughts on the problem…or lack of one I guess.

2

I think these three are the most common factors among those faced by readers. But I think the most common is the “Data is too complex”.

3

I seen a few websites that have a mass of data weblinks on their front page. Why they do that is pretty much unknown. However their hosting might be limiting how many webpages they can make.