INFORMATION OVERLOAD: IMPLICATIONS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF WEB-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEM (Part 1)

The world has moved from the agricultural revolution to an era that could best be described as the Information revolution. In this era, information is considered as a critical resource factor to individuals and organisations. In the past, the consumption of information was passive to a large extent. However, the invention and widespread usage of computers and other electronic devices meant a shift from the traditional creation and management of information where information is generated in handwritten form and managed on papers to a more interactive electronic or digital form where the creation and management of information is handled by the computer.

Today, information accessibility and usage has become relatively easy as a result of the development of the World Wide Web delivered via the internet. The World Wide Web has contributed to an enormous advancement in the volumes and complexities of information and for organisations; the website is the main contributory source of information for their customers. A significant volume of internal and external information generated by organisations could be viewed on their website. The daily inflows and outflows of information in excess amount making processing and administration tasks difficult led to a term coined by Alvin Toffler as Information Overload.

Information overload is not a new concept, but has gained much prominence over the last decade. It is against this backdrop that this piece of writing seeks to examine the concept of Information overload and Web-based Information system. The focus is to analyze the implication excess information or information overload brings to bear on the management of Web-based Information system.

It is not uncommon to hear internet users complaining about the difficulty in accessing Information from websites or electronic databases. A company publishes a news item on its website and a day or week after, the Information could no longer be accessed.

Like many other Internet users and Information explorers, I feel obliged to ask some pertinent questions that come to mind when confronted with the challenges of Information accessibility. First of all, do organisations/Institutions discard in part or entirely information from their website or database when it loses its currency? Or when there is an increased accumulation of Information? Or perhaps the Information may be available but difficult to retrieve.

In the phase of mounting information, NewYork Times electronic resources updates its content on a regular basis and have archives of articles and news items dating back to 1851. However, this scenario is in contrast with many other websites.

International Data Corporation (IDC) considers Information overload not only about the growing mountain of information but also the growing diversity of information. These diversities of information ranges from email request and delivery, articles and news items, product information, messages on blogs, images, video and other multimedia. Information overload is not a new observable fact. Humans have dealt with information in every phase of their lives and every part of their history. The introduction of the World Wide Web however, made this phenomenon manageable. Imagine a situation where the World Wide Web is printed out on a paper. One cannot therefore discount the implications of the growing diversity of this information on the work of web-based administrators.

So how bad is Information Overload?

Information overload, if not well managed effectively becomes a technology pressure to an already existing business pressure. A global survey conducted by IDC in 2008 revealed that 75% of workers in more than 1,000 large organisations suffered from information overload. Of those, 45% indicated that they were “over¬whelmed.” A project report from the European Institute for Research and Strategic Studies in Telecommunication (EURESCOM) in 2001, outlined that the effects of Information overload is manifested in many ways including; health problems, diminished productivity of individuals and companies, organisational inefficiency throughout society, frustration, disillusionment and depression, and impaired judgement and bad decision making.

Continue from part II......

REFERENCES:

EURESCOM (2009). Impacts of Information Overload Available at: http://www.eurescom.eu/~pub-deliverables/P900-series/P947/D1/p947d1.pdf

International Data Corporation (2009). Cutting the Clutter: Tackling Information Overload at the Source. IDC White Paper. Available at: http://www.xerox.com/assets/motion/corporate/pages/programs/information-overload/pdf/Xerox-white-paper-3-25.pdf

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RECOUNTING HISTORY: THE CHRONOLOGY OF PAST EXPERIENCES

When I was a child, I viewed the world in a telescope full of possibilities. The word Impossible was alien to me. I was a captive of my own belief and lived in an island of self delusion. I rumbled and babbled, and expected the whole world to listen and comprehend. Even when the world cannot figure out what I meant, I expected my concerns to be addressed. I never knew and for that reason did not believe in work and earn, Invest and gain nor sow and reap. On the contrary, I shared the lifestyle of the chicken that messes up the earth with the mouth after eating without showing gratitude but irksomely announces its presence at dawn by vociferously crowing ostensibly to remind its masters of their responsibilities for the day.

The passage of time somehow altered my telescopic view of the world and the dynamics of nature. These dynamics of nature gave me an expansive view of a world not only of possibilities but possibilities with responsibilities. I realized that the world of possibilities is a theory of the mind, and assuming responsibilities of the mind of Ideas, thoughts and beliefs is a collaboration of the movement of the self to act on what is conceived. I observed that possibilities (state of the mind) and responsibilities (self actuating) could work in partnership to achieve a desired and common enterprise. I have come to reckon that, even a sole personality cannot function successfully if it operates in a vacuum. Consequently, I made a resolution to upgrade the mind and self based on my new conviction of life.

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OBSERVING YOU IN CYBERSPACE: THE KNOWN AND UKNOWN

The statistics of World Internet usage published by Internet World Stats sprang up to 1,966,514,816 as at june 30, 2010. According to the publication, there was a percentage growth of 444.8 from 2000 to 2010, an indication of a growing interest in the Internet. The Internet, otherwise referred to as Cyberspace could be accessed by using different technologies and devices from any earthly location and these means of accessibility are perceptible to individuals, organisations and Institutions of states. The perceptibility of these devices makes it possible for users browsing activities in cyberspace to be subjected to monitoring.

According to Dinev & et. al. (2005), the activities of Internet users generate detailed electronic footprints or trails that could reveal their behaviour and interests. This is made feasible by using sophisticated technologies to carry out a continuous and concentrated online monitoring prevalently referred to as “Surveillance and Profiling”.

The Civil Society Internet Rights Project (CSIR) defines Surveillance as the monitoring of activities of an individual, group or groups of people whilst the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines Profiling as the activity of collecting information about someone, in order to give a description of them.

Users of Cyberspace are seldom aware of the Surveillance and Profiling capabilities (Cavoukian & Tapscott, 1997) and the fact that their browsing activities and behaviour could be monitored. Consequently, Cyberspace users freely give out information about themselves oblivious of its implications. This information is used to create a unique and privately owned knowledge of Internet users regarding their lifestyle and social identity (Corien, 2009). According to Lyon (1994), Internet users who are aware of such practices are however unconscious of how much others know about them.

Each passing day, Cyberspace users unconsciously feed the growth of Surveillance by needlessly providing Information about themselves and allowing strangers into their lives (Cavoukian & Tapscott, 1997). The practice of Profiling and Surveillance starts the very moment a user visits a website. These websites either installs or use cookies, log files, web bugs, spyware, IP Address, transaction information, click history, etc, to monitor or transmit information to a host computer using a unique identifier (Thibodeau, 2000; Bennet, 2001; Martin, Wu & Alsaid, 2003; Mobbs, 2003; Strandburg & Raicu, 2006).

Whilst some websites indicate their surveillance capabilities in their privacy policies, others barely make such disclosures to users. A survey carried out by Ansah (2010), revealed that majority of Cyberspace users seldom read the Privacy Policies of websites that collects their Personal Identifiable Information. As a result, if the website publishes Information about its surveillance activities, users extend their contribution towards the success of the surveillance network by providing Information that could be used to trace both their online and offline identity.

REFERENCES:

Ansah, P (2010). Profiling and Surveillance in Cyberspace: The Problem of User Identity. MSc thesis, Middlesex University, London.

Cavoukian, A., & Tapscott, D. (1997). Who Knows: Safeguarding your Privacy in a networked world.
New York: McGraw - Hill.

Corien, P. J. (2009). Selling my soul to the Digital world. Amsterdam Law Forum , Vol. 1 (No. 4)

Dinev, T., & et al. (2005). Internet Users’ Privacy Concerns and Attitudes towards Government
Surveillance – An Exploratory Study of Cross-Cultural Differences between Italy and the United
States. 18th Bled eConference eIntegration in Action. Slovenia.

Internet Rights. (2010). Fact Sheets: Privacy and surveillance. Retrieved July 2, 2010, from
http://www.internetrights.org.uk/factsheets.shtml?cmd[512]=i-512-
972b9120a7ddc843a4226d2bed2e8e15&x=53233

Internet World Statistics - http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Lyon, D. (1994). The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society. Cambridge: Polity Press

Martin, D., Wu, H., & Alsaid, A. (2003). Hidden surveillance by Web sites: Web bugs in contemporary use. Communications of the ACM , 46 (12), 258 - 264.

Mobbs, P. (2003, April 1). Privacy and Surveillance: How and when organisations and the state can monitor your actions. Retrieved June 3, 2010, from http://www.internetrights.org.uk/briefings/irtb05-rev1-draft.pdf

Strandburg, K. J., & Raicu, D. S. (2006). Privacy and technologies of identity: a cross-disciplinary conversation. New York: Springer Inc.

Thibodeau, P. (2000). Online Profiling. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from Computer World:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/50332/Online_Profiling

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