An Essay on Information Overload

Purpose/thesis: Information overload, whether we realise it or not, is commonplace and affects various kinds of knowledge workers and ordinary consumers of information. The purpose of the paper is to identify main sources and reasons of the information flood and information overcharge, propose a remedy complete with the method of implementing personal trophic information pyramid, information firewall and everyday filtering routines, and envisage measures that the information science could elaborate on and employ in order to help limit the information overload. Approach/methods: The author’s personal experience as a researcher and teacher at a technical university and a heavy consumer of information, informal interviews with other scholars and knowledge workers of the high-tech corporate world, and talks with students and ordinary information users supplemented by desk research and statistics are the ground against which this essay was devised and written. Results and conclusions: The major conclusion of the reported research is that the overwhelming feeling of personal overcharge with information and some vulnerability to the information flood is commonplace regardless of the category of information consumers. However, rarely can one observe the cases of devising and implementing countermeasures to control the information flow and intake and shape conscious information users. The result of the study is a set of guidelines for individuals concerning self-protection against the information flood. The author has also discovered that the discipline of information science does not provide information users with explicit methodologies helping them to control the information intake and resist the information pollution. Originality/value: Information overload is a widely discussed topic in the international literature; however, it is virtually absent from Polish academic and scientific journals. This essay is an attempt to fill the gap in question, though to a certain degree only, and provide some recommendations for the information science concerning this issue, in particular by boosting and promoting digital literacy and awareness that information overcharge does exist and is a threat to human brains and mind.