Information Overload in Social Media

I was feeling a bit of information overload this week after browsing through Twitter, the class blogs, the discussion board, and my two new online communities. It seems as if there is an endless flow of information out there and it is quite a task to filter through it to get to the meat and potatoes. I was not certain if my information processing abilities were being bogged down or strengthened. I noticed that this mass consumption of information and knowledge started to affect me mentally and I started feeling really low on mental energy and a bit overwhelmed. I decided to look at some research to determine if there was any way for me to avoid this feeling.

I found this neat study that was presented at the Eighth International AAA1 Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. The researchers wanted to understand the impact of information overload in social media, and they chose Twitter for their study. The researchers found that the most active and popular users on social media are the ones that are affected by information overload more than anyone. One interesting finding is that the rate at which we receive information online directly influences our processing behaviors. How we prioritize information from different sources, how much information we process, and how quickly we process information are all contingent on this overall information processing rate. The researchers found that when we receive information at a high rate, it takes us longer to process it. For users that receive information at a high rate, an exposure to an important piece of information, or an idea, will be much less effective than for a user receiving information at an average or low rate. I thought that this was a pretty cool study, but I’m certain that individual differences like experience, self-efficacy, motivation, cognitive abilities, and skill level play a huge role here. All in all, I finally came to the conclusion that I should modify my information processing behavior and try to pace myself a bit better. I believe that some people have just developed better information processing skills than me and I’m certain that this is something that I can improve on. Do any of you have any tips that you can share for processing vast amounts of information from the Interwebs?

https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM14/paper/view/8108/8117


Gomez Rodriguez, M.; Gummadi, K.; Schoelkopf, B.. Quantifying Information Overload in Social Media and Its Impact on Social Contagions. International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, North America, may. 2014. Available at: https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM14/paper/view/8108/8117. Date accessed: 06 Jul. 2017.

Comments

  1. innovative design coJuly 7, 2017 at 6:01 AM

    I know what you mean about overload. I've found myself checking my phone and laptop more closely these past weeks so I wouldn't miss anything, and I didn't like that. I'm usually one to live in the moment and use my tech as an after thought.

    What I have done to curate the overwhelming information is to notify me when new post are made available (I do this a lot on Twitter).

    And I also make sure to follow only those that share information that is valuable to me or gives me inspiration in my work or personal life. I'm also not afraid to unfollow or block content from my feed (I do this more on Facebook and Pinterest).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kelli LongfellowJuly 8, 2017 at 8:08 AM

    I agree with Rebecca! I also think a wise thing to do is to approach any social media platform with a task in mind. Whether it be wanting to learn about a certain topic, catch up on news, or send your friend a message. I find when I just login for no specific reason, I end up scrolling aimlessly and wasting so much time.

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