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How to deal with information overload

Learn to space out your interaction with phone, TV, computer

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by The Star

Africa17 January 2022 - 17:44
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In Summary


• You need to give yourself time away from information devices lest you pay the price

• It can lead to headache, eye strain, back pain and pain in hands, arms and shoulders

Youth listen to music on their phone as they browse

Do you feel you are spending so much time on electronic devices that your head is about to explode? Are you starting to forget things, and feeling confused, anxious and stressed?

Do you feel compelled to check messages and emails because you don’t want to miss out? Do you feel you must answer your messages immediately for fear of offending the sender? Do you worry that you are not working or studying hard because you are spending too much time online?

You are not alone if you are experiencing these signs of information overload. The growing use of electronic devices, such as mobile phones, computers, tablets and television, means we are constantly bombarded with lots of information.

Researchers say we are getting too much information beyond the ability of the human mind to process. This results in reduced attention span, stress, anxiety and an inability to make decisions.

All these have led to suggestions of adopting a “data diet”, where we identify and consume only that information that’s useful.

Of course, each of us has different ideas of what information we find useful, but the emphasis should be quality information rather than quantity.

Information overload can have physical symptoms, too, as discovered in a survey done in South Africa in 2020.

The symptoms include headache, eye strain, back pain and pain in the hands, arms and shoulders.

Meanwhile, a related survey in Europe the previous year reveals that people suffering from information overload are likely to show symptoms of depression.

“Whereas information used to be scarce, and having more of it was considered a good thing, it seems that we now have reached the point of saturation and need to limit our use of it,” says Prof Francis Heylighen, a Belgian who has studied information overload extensively.

He attributes the problem to technological advances that have made the retrieval, production and distribution of information so much easier than in earlier periods.

INFORMATION POLLUTION

“The result is an explosion in often irrelevant, unclear and inaccurate data fragments, making it ever more difficult to see the forest through the trees,” Heyligen observes.

The massive amount of information available to the average person has been criticised as, “information pollution”.

Each day we face a massive amount of information shared by family, friends, fellow workers, media outlets, social media and WhatsApp groups. Apps on our phones notify us whenever new bits of information are available, which is very often. Media outlets are competing on being the first to break a story, resulting in frequent updates.

We get lots of unwanted information from spam emails and promotional SMSes. Think of how many times you were woken up in the middle of the night by a message. You thought it was an important message (such as receiving mobile money) only to find it was a marketing message.

Information overload has negative consequences at the workplace. Employees and managers get distracted by unnecessary messages not relevant to the work at hand. Lots of people waste time using the Internet for recreation. In any case, even without employer-provided Internet, many employees have Internet on their phones.

Decision-makers get overwhelmed with information which makes it harder rather than easier to decide. It takes time to sift through a database to absorb the needed information.

Superstar Kanye West spoke about the subject in 2018, saying, “We’re in this so-called information age but we’re starving for wisdom.”

Digital technologies have led to a merging between working hours and personal life because employees are available anytime, anywhere. This has led to the emergence of a movement known as the “Right to Disconnect,” which calls for employers to respect the off-duty hours of employees.

Last November, Portugal passed a law making it illegal for employers to punish employees for not responding to work-related communication after official hours. Canada, France, Germany and the Philippines also have Right to Disconnect laws.

INFORMATION OBESITY

It is not only employees suffering from information overload; students are experiencing it, too. Three Kenyan authors, Afline Awuor, Tom Kwanya and Grace Nyambok, surveyed local university students to find out how information overload is affecting their studies. The 2018 study found that infobesity (information obesity) is common among students doing their first degree.

“Current students operate in an environment of information abundance to the extent that they are overwhelmed, fearful, frustrated, fatigued and anxious. They are infoxicated (information toxication) and are unable to make the best use of the information for academics, career development and general information,” the three authors wrote in their report.

Among their recommendations for tackling information obesity is for students to adopt a data diet, through which they identify and consume only the information useful to their studies.

TACKLING INFOBESITY

The first step towards dealing with information overload is to ruthlessly eliminate irrelevant information. Determine which information is worthy of your attention.

If you are not a football fan, why are you looking at football updates? Why are you still in the WhatsApp group of a residential area you left two years ago? You have a right to opt-out of promotional messages if they aren’t useful. You lived in Dubai but moved back to Kenya five years ago; why are you still subscribed to Dubai road traffic updates?

Second step is dealing with social media. Allocate specific times for it during your waking hours. You could, for example, check social media for 15 minutes every two hours. If you are on more than one social media platform, allocate a specific time for each. Switch off all notifications so you are not disturbed whenever there’s a message. Use the same approach for email, that is, not opening emails each time you get a notification.

Third step is by taking control of your responses. Unless it’s your spouse, boss or customer, you do not have to respond immediately if someone sends you a message. You don’t have to respond to personal messages while at work. It is okay not to pick up calls or respond when busy on a project. Imagine if a farmer in the field picked up every call that comes, how much work would they do? It is okay to blue-tick someone on WhatsApp and respond later.

Fourth step is to give yourself time away from information devices: TV, phones and computers. Meal times, prayer sessions and family discussions should not be distracted by devices. The information age is taking up too much of our lives. It’s time to reclaim what we are losing.

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