Previously published
Introduction
Blockchainized Bachelor’s Thesis
Blockchainized Bachelor’s Thesis – Initial Brainstorm
Thesis
Sources
1.Battling Information Overload in the Information Age
2.1. The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management? pt.1
2.2. The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management? pt. 2
Article
SCHNEIDER, U. The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management? JOURNAL OF UNIVERSAL COMPUTER SCIENCE. NEW YORK: SPRINGER-VERLAG [online] 2002, 8(5), 482-490. ISSN 0948-6968.
The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management?
„As Dörner demonstrates in his research there is no linear relationship between the quality of a decision and the quantity of information available to take it. Economic theory inclines us to accumulate information to take better decisions if we can gather it at low cost as homo oeconomicus calculates his best alternative based on complete information. But, Dörner has found out that the quality of decisions taken by his test persons – all holding degrees and top leadership positions – deteriorated progressively as they were exposed to information overload and time pressure. They tended to fall back into simplifications, black and white picturing of situations and random filtering of information [Dörner 1998].“
This is a very interesting study. What should we take from it? First of all we should take from it the fact that the amount of information about anything doesn’t “grant” us the ability to make decisions of high quality. We should not start to think that the amount of information can’t have positive influence on the decision making though. It is super important to possess as much information as we can, but at the same time it’s important not to make those decisions right after we have assembled the information needed (as I tried to imply in the previous paragraph). Gathering of huge amount of information will always cost us a lot of energy, therefore it is not desirable to make the decision right after the gathering. We should leave the information to mature and then, with replenished energy, jump to the decision making.
„As a third effect of information overload we can therefore adhere to the fact that it deteriorates the quality of decision making, processes as well as outcomes.“
That is true. As I said in the previous paragraph, we need to leave the information to mature and then make the decision with replenished energy.
„Technical remedies are devices that filter information to exclude irrelevant material, that automate retrieval and indexing (intelligent agents) or that support the recognition of patterns and causal relations in huge amounts of seemingly unrelated data (data-mining). If supplied with criteria and set rules, computers can take on large parts of knowledge work, such as structuring, compiling, condensing and comparing data. But, the best system is only as good as the individual using it. My guess, though, is that growth in volume of outcome, made possible by such progress, combined with a decline in human capacity and discipline due to the ease in processing, storing and diffusing information, will outgrow the potential technology offers to solve the overload challenge. Technical progress in the past has usually consumed about one third to one half of its potential to reduce complexity in order to cope with the complexity inherent to itself.“
Another super interesting point that I would partly argue against and partly agree with. It is undisputably correct, that as of now it consumes a significant amount of energy to master any given technical remedy. It might not even be profitable at the end. The author works with his premise that we are getting worse in the categorization itself and that we will only be dependent on the technology itself. I do agree that so far it has worked in a way described by the author. I though think that the current generations are still merely just trying to adapt to the virtual technologies and are far from the “symbiosis” that can be achieved in the future. Also if our brains are truly still just adapting, therefore are not getting worse, but better, even if slowly, it is likely that technical remedies in the future will become more profitable in terms of energy spend/saved. To sum it up, I agree that now what the author said is correct, but I think that this logical process cannot be objectively applied to the future version of possibly adapted humanity.
„Psychological remedies address the way humans cope with structural overload. Abilities that are less trained nowadays because computers make life easy, have become even more important: The ability to set priorities and to know what one wants, the ability to understand the essence of an issue and the ability to know what one does not know (enlightened ignorance) and to know what one does not need to know (positive ignorance). To cope with an abundance of choices, easy to access, requires strong will, however, will is weakened by the mere existence of abundant choices. Problem solving and pattern recognition abilities need to be trained from early childhood while our educational systems still put a premium on reproducing information. Positive ignorance may be the toughest issue here as we still try to live up to the vision of the “Renaissance Man” who knows all about her world. It must not be tackled mechanically as serendipity is to be considered. Serendipity means openness to seemingly irrelevant pieces of information that may, by chance, fall into a highly relevant picture later on.“
This is just gold. I often times argue against the “Renaissance Man” syndrome. We simply need to specialize more and rethink whether everything that is now considered to be “a must learn knowledge” is really that important and whether its usefulness will not fall off even more in the future version of our civilization (which can be right behind the corner).
“One way to cope with overload from a learning perspective is to train people to withstand the seduction of volume, another would be to train their capacity to digest more. The first way focuses on highly effective use of information by keeping the old virtues of thinking alive. Unfortunately this is counteracted by industry that distracts consumers by a plenitude of attention-capturing options that consume time needed to think and to learn. The second way follows the philosophy of adapting humans to the new technical environment rather than the other way round. Courses in fast reading, in attention switching and in memorizing shall increase the ability to process large volumes of information. As with technical remedies I expect this type of solution to follow the pattern depicted in the old fairy tale of the hedgehogs and the rabbit: They will always lag behind.“
Totally. All the aspects that need to be taught more, which were mentioned by the author, are part of the information literacy. The relevance of information literacy will be ever more important as the amount of information grows. The author’s conclusion is needlessly subjectively pesimistic. It’s important to understand that there is no “goal line” where we will suddenly “not lag behind”. Overload exists (fact), we need to deal with it if we want to be more effective (fact), anything that helps us reduce it is good for us (fact), we don’t need one saving grace that would save us from the information overload alone (fact), in that case there is nothing to lag behind. It merely is just trying to be more effective regarding the information overflow. Information literacy is just a tool that will help us to fight the information overload.
„In this paper I have argued that scholars and practitioners of knowledge management have, for some incomprehensible reason, neglected a phenomenon that threatens to counteract their progress, namely information overload. They have not only neglected this phenomenon but contribute to it by following a linear vision of accumulating ever more information to improve the productivity of knowledge work.“
Every single individual in the information age is practitioner of knowledge management to an extent. Accumulation of ever more information is not bad. What matters is which information we accumulate, how we do it, with which purpose and so on. The author had a lot of REALLY GREAT points, but fails to reach probable and objective solutions. Truth be told, the text is from 2009, and maybe back then the thinkers had much less data at their disposal. Maybe the conclusions were probable back then. Nevertheless the article was super hard to read and was full of great thinking. The next text will be the last "ancestral one". Right after that I will almost exclusively read the newest additions (2017-2018).
