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We Have the Information You Want, but Getting It Will Cost You!: Held Hostage by Information Overload

. Crossroads, 1 (1): 11--15 (September 1994)
DOI: 10.1145/197177.197183

Abstract

The Information Age has arrived and with it comes a daily assault of increased information. Society is being held hostage by a battery of information which threatens to exceed our ability to manage it. Information overload costs businesses and individuals valuable time, effort and additional resources...and the cost is rising. Wurman 20 writes, ä weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England." In today's society, the success and survival of many companies and individuals hinges upon their ability to "locate, analyze, and use information skillfully and appropriately 10." Our proficiency at generating information has exceeded our abilities to find, review and understand it. The problems associated with the explosion of information are exemplified on the "Internet-turned-Information-Superhighway." The volume of information on the Internet has exceeded the ability of most people to find the information they need. The tools to support resource identification and use have not increased in effectiveness as rapidly as the quantity of available information has increased.

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