Information Overload | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Information Overload

First comprehensively treated by the futurologist Alvin Toffler (1970), information overload refers to excessive flows and amounts of data or information that can lead to detrimental computational, physical, psychological, and social effects. For the vast majority of human history, information was scarce and its production, dissemination, and retrieval were nearly unqualified goods that could improve culture, develop commerce, and promote personal autonomy. The advance of information and communication technologies especially since World War II has transformed this scarcity into an abundance. For example, Peter Lyman and Hal Varian (2003) estimated that print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced roughly five exabytes of new information in 2002, equivalent to the information that could be stored in 37,000 libraries the size of the Library of Congress. This doubled the amount of new information that had been stored just three years earlier. The glut of information takes several forms and raises many concerns. Indeed it is ironic that information technologies, envisioned by many of their progenitors as devices for organizing information, improving understanding, and boosting productivity often also contribute to disorders, inefficiencies, and confusion.

Causes and Types

Technology, the free-market, and democracy have nearly erased the limits that once caused only the most important information to be published and distributed.

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