Information Overload or Uncertainty Overload?

Michael LoBue writes: The New York Times recently reported on the formation of a new special interest group, the Information Overload Research Group – see June 14, 2008 article by Matt Richtel.

What knowledge or information worker doesn’t want this group to succeed?  What “soccer mom (or dad)” doesn’t want them to succeed?  None – we all want relief from information overload!  Or do we?

When I reflect on my own working experiences, not trivial as I’ve worked in every sector of the economy in a wide variety of jobs and levels of responsibilities for more than 30 years, it’s not information overload that has the greatest impact on my ability to produce – especially my ability to produce the right results.  No, it’s uncertainty.

It’s also not any uncertainty, it’s uncertainty about what matters to me, which may be different than what matters to my colleagues, co-workers and clients.

Clearly the volume of information and the way it arrives (e.g., text, audio, print, video, etc.) have an impact, but I sense the real culprit is whether or not that information gives me a sense of uncertainty about what matters most to me.

Taking this one step further, as a manager, what information flows should I be concerned about that might increase the levels of uncertainty of those in my organization?

I suspect a good bit of research about uncertainty exists in the fields of economics, psychology, sports competition, management and decision sciences.  I seem to recall reading of a study some years ago about airplane delays and how passengers became anxious when sitting on a plane after pulling away from the gate, but clearly not proceeding to the runway to take off.  As I recall the research demonstrated that passengers will calmly wait a good deal of time if the pilot (person of perceived authority) provides the passengers with seemingly accurate information about the status of the flight.  Absent this useful information the passengers experienced high anxiety and agitation, clearly affecting their judgments and behavior.  Sound like a work environment today?

Perhaps it’s less about information “overload” and more about our information "diet"?

Dr. Guus Pijpers' issue paper entitled Using an Information Profile deserves another read...

Comments

[Nathan Zeldes]

This reminds me of the research on “Online Silence,” the failure to respond to an e-mail in a timely fashion. Lack of response breeds ambiguity and uncertainty, since it is unknown whether the message was willfully ignored, not yet opened, filtered away by some rule, left for later response, or simply lingers unnoticed under the avalanche. Ambiguity can be worse than delay; researchers have found this problem to severely impact distributed team processes.