INFORMATION NETWORKING AS TECHNOLOGY: TOOLS, USES, AND SOCIO-TECHNICAL INTERACTIONS essay
Information overload is a commonly discussed topic nowadays. The new means of communication, increasing data flows from electronic sources, radio, TV, banners and other media channels require greater attention and effort from modern people. At the same time, the history of the humanity shows that since early ages the advancements in information storage, information processing and sharing led to the increase of information flows in the society, so information overload might not be a new concept for the mankind. In any way, the efficiency of human beings and organizations during the transition from printed to electronic media remains an important concern. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether organizations are more likely to find better solutions to the existing information overload through changes to their technical systems, their social systems or the changes of both systems.
- History of information management
According to Blair (2010), the complaint about information overload was common in different cultures and in different ages: when printing was invented, people were complaining about too many books, and with the advent of electronic media these complaints simply changed their target. Along with the evolution of data storage techniques, the methods of data sorting, categorizing, selecting and summarizing also evolved.
At the same time, although the tendency towards the increase of information flows emerged many centuries ago, there is evidence that the exponential growth of information which is witnessed nowadays has particularly negative consequences for human cognition. According to Wardrop (2009), modern people receive about 23 words per second, and such intensive flow of information has a detrimental effect on brain functioning. People tend to disconnect from ach other and their attention spans become shorter. Hence, human brain devotes less time to the processes of connecting information, integrating it into knowledge and converting these findings into deeper thoughts, beliefs and world outlook.
- Information and knowledge
Information processing by the human beings takes place in several stages. Most commonly, researchers outline the following states: data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom (Bellinger, Castro & Mills, 2004). Each of these layers builds up on the previous layer, so it is not possible to reach the next layer without mastering the previous ones. Data pertains to some messages encoded in symbolic form; information denotes that data that were processed by a human being and which are associated with some particular facts or meanings. The next step, knowledge, takes place when the information is applied and the person working with the information can answer relevant questions starting with “how” (Bellinger, Castro & Mills, 2004). Furthermore, understanding is associated with a deeper level of data processing when the person can answer the question “why”, and wisdom denotes the understanding evaluated in the context of one’s integral world outlook.
The core issue with the information overload that is taking place nowadays is that the boundaries between information and knowledge are being blurred, and that due to extended time required for converting data into information and information into knowledge, there is no time to more to the next levels of information processing. These trends are especially visible in the social networks, Twitter conversations and other modern means of information exchange (Green, 2010).
- Socio-technical approach
The volumes of information consumption are increasing in geometric progression: for example, the volume of words consumed by the people in the U.S. has more than doubled between 1980 and 2008 (and this statistic does not include in-person conversations) (Wardrop, 2009). Evidently, human brains need to adapt to the changing consequences, and human beings currently experience difficulties between the existing channels of information processing and the requirements of the new environment. In order to stay efficient, human beings should either alter brain mechanisms responsible for information processing, or improve technical means of retrieving and filtering information, or combine both approaches. The same relates to organizations: in order to survive in the modern environment, organizations should enhance their means of information processing, both technical and social, and enhance the alignment between these two approaches.
The research of Kwan (2011) shows that the performance of software companies depends both on the technical and social components, and that companies with efficient technical tools still experience failures, primarily due to the human component and the lack of social interaction between team members. The main thesis of this paper is the following: organizations need to improve technical means helping people to manage, access and retrieve the relevant data upon request, and at the same time should enhance the social interactions between the people in the organization.
- Counter-arguments
According to Ott (2010), the term ” information overload” is too much hyped, and in reality there is no such thing as information overload. Instead, according to Ott (2010), there is the lack of proper information filters and there are people who therefore allow excess information to overwhelm them. The major constraint in this case is time constraint. Ott (2010) states that it is possible to overcome the challenges of information filtering by introducing new techniques and methods enabling people to cope with the existing data flows, just like catalogs and book reviews helped people to cope with the increase of information flows after the advent of printing.
However, Ott misses one important thing: the intensity of data flows in the modern world also requires faster and more efficient reactions, and there emerge situations when people or organizations have to deal with unexpected data flows (or technical means of coping with data flows produce errors). In order to be comfortable in this world, human beings and organizations have to reconsider their social reactions to the rapidly changing environment and combine their new reactions and perceptions with the advanced technical means of data filtering and selecting. The use of pure technical means for addressing the challenge of information overload is insufficient because in this case people will be less integrated into the society and more isolated from others due to technology.
Conclusion
The volumes of information that people have to face nowadays are impressive: during the next 4 years the humanity is expected to generate more data that it has accumulated during all previous world history. This means that people should invent more efficient and more intelligent technical tools for information processing, retrieval and management that are aware of the context and can assist people handle data overload (Fischer, 2012).
At the same time, improvement of technical tools only does not guarantee success, as it is shown by Kwan (2011). Therefore, in order to handle information overload, organizations should make sure that they are using efficient technical tools, optimize social interaction between its members and align the use of technical and social interactions into an integral system.
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