Are information age workers drowning in information?

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 14th ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WIDE WEB APPLICATIONS 7-9 November 2012 Durban South Africa Editors: A. Koch P.A. van Brakel Publisher: Cape Peninsula University of Technology PO Box 652 Cape Town 8000 Proceedings published at http://www.zaw3.co.za ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 2 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN The full papers were refereed by a double-blind reviewing process according to South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) refereeing standards. Before accepting a paper, authors were to include the corrections as stated by the peerreviewers. Of the 72 full papers received, 64 were accepted for the Proceedings (acceptance rate: 89%). Papers were reviewed according to the following criteria:       Relevancy of the paper to Web-based applications Explanation of the research problem & investigative questions Quality of the literature analysis Appropriateness of the research method(s) Adequacy of the evidence (findings) presented in the paper Technical (e.g. language editing; reference style). The following reviewers took part in the process of evaluating the full papers of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications: Prof RA Botha Department of Business Informatics Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Mr AA Buitendag Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof AJ Bytheway Faculty of Informatics and Design Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Mr A El-Sobky Consultant 22 Sebwih El-Masry Street Nasr City, Cairo Prof M Herselman Meraka Institute, CSIR Pretoria Mr EL Howe Institute of Development Management Swaziland Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 3 Dr A Koch Department of Cooperative Education Faculty of Business Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Dr DI Raitt Editor: The Electronic Library (Emerald) London Mr PK Ramdeyal Department of Information and Communication Technology Mangosuthu University of Technology Durban Prof CW Rensleigh Department of Information and Knowledge Management University of Johannesburg Johannesburg Prof A Singh Business School University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban Prof JS van der Walt Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof D van Greunen School of ICT Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Further enquiries: Prof PA van Brakel Conference Chair: Annual Conference on WWW Applications Cape Town +27 21 469 1015 (landline) +27 82 966 0789 (mobile) Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 4 Are information age workers drowning in information? M.I. Mungly Celebrity Software (Pty) Ltd South Africa [email protected] A.M. Singh University of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa [email protected] Abstract Humans have shared information for as long as they have existed. However, the channels of communication have changed over time - from cave walls to modern computing devices. The primary aim of communication is to exchange information. Advances in technology has heralded a new era called the information age. The information age has brought with it infinite new sources and new ways of exchanging information which includes voice and video phone calls, email, social network sites, rich site summary, short message service and instant messaging. Whilst information is readily available at ones fingertips, these modern sources of information and enhanced communication tools have resulted in information overload. Information overload can be described as a situation where people are swamped with more information than they are able to usefully use. Keywords Information age, information overload, South Africa 1. Introduction The increasing number of information sources coupled with the development of the Internet and communication technologies has resulted in growing amounts of data and information that users need to process. The modern corporate citizen has to deal with more information than he/she can process. This is commonly known as information overload. Much of the research that has been conducted on information overload have focused on the West and the East. There is very little evidence of research from an African perspective. This study will seek to answer the questions “what impact is technology having on information overload in South Africa? How is information overload being managed?” In order to explain information overload, this paper will present a literature review on the concept of information overload with the aim of highlighting its causes, effects and measures. The goals of this paper are threefold: to identify the source of information overload, establish the probable causes of information overload, and to identify methods to curb information overload. The key research problem formulated for this article is: to what extent does the concept of information overload influence information workers in South Africa. This paper will evaluate and synthesise existing research on the topic. The review conducted for this paper was predominantly focused to papers published Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 5 between 2005 and 2012 in the discipline of business. The sample of articles examined was generated through conducting both a structured search of the electronic database EBSCO Publishing and the use of a snowballing approach based on exploring the bibliographies of known studies. These articles were then evaluated for the extent to which the concept of information overload was included, either in terms of the causes, effects or measures, or whether empirical data on information overload were examined and analysed. 2. The concept of information overload Humans have shared information for as long as they have existed. However, the methods of communication have changed over time - from cave walls, to clay tablets, papyrus leaves, newspapers, radio, broadcast television, to personal computing devices. One of the most significant shifts in the past decade is how information has changed shape (Lindkvist 2011). The advances in information and communication technology have made information abundant. One such example of communication is the Internet which has facilitated the exchange of information in many ways ranging from emails, voice and video calls, SMS, RSS and instant messaging. This means that basically we can get any information we might desire almost instantaneously. This growing number of information sources coupled with the development of the Internet has resulted in increasing amounts of data and information that users receive and need to process (Lubowitz & Poehling 2010; Hipp, Mutschler & Reichert 2011; Lindkvist 2011). According to Krinn (2011), an information revolution is upon us and has become a global phenomenon which has resulted in the stream of information becoming difficult to manage. Whilst information is readily available at ones fingertips, the superabundance of information is resulting in information overload. 2.1 Defining information overload The term information overload was popularised as early as the seventies by Toffler (1970, p.23) and was characterised by him as the difficulty a person faces when taking a decision in the presence of excessive information. According to Losee (1989) information overload can be defined as the "economic loss associated with the examination of a number of nonor less-relevant messages, as in related to information retrieval models." Hiltz and Turoff (1985) defined information overload as a situation where an individual is presented with an amount of data which exceeds his or her cognitive capacity. Information overload can be described as a situation where people are swamped with more information than they are able to usefully use (Ireland 1999). There have been several studies related to information overload and related concepts which introduced different terms and labels. Krinn (2011) introduced the term information fatigue, where humans struggle to deal with information in the subconscious because new information or opinions keep arriving via email, text messages and tweets. Table 1 lists some of these terms as they appear in the literature. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 6 Table 1: Terms related to information overload Terms Overabundance of irrelevant information Information fatigue syndrome Data smog Communication pollution Information anxiety Information stress Infobesity, information avoidance, library anxiety References Ackoff (1967) Oppenheim (1997) Shenk (1998) Sparrow (1999) Sparrow (1999) Stuart, Nick, Jeanette and Michelle (2001) Bawden and Robinson (2008) Bawden, Holtham and Courtney (1999) defined the term information as a way to represent a state of affairs where the efficiency of an individual in using information in their work is hampered by the amount of significant, and possibly useful, information available to them. Yamin and Ramayah (2011) added that the abundance of information on the internet has added to the information overload problem due to the fact that search engines return large volumes of information. This presents a problem for users who find it difficult to filter through this tsunami of information. Whilst there is no single definition of the term, what is evident from the foregoing definitions is that information overload is characterised by excessive information, which is sometimes irrelevant and which may exceed his/her capacity to process or comprehend. The concept of information overload has attracted researchers from multiple disciplines which includes: financial markets (Velez 2008), aviation (Deveans & Kewley 2009), business (Simperl, Thurlow, Warren, Dengler, Davies, Grobelnik, Mladenic, Gómez-Pérez & Moreno 2010), information technology (Fowler & Hammell 2011) and most recently, medicine (Hsu, Taira, El-Saden, Kangarloo & Bui 2012). This multi-disciplinary interest in information overload suggests that it is an important concept which needs greater attention which includes understanding its source, its effects and how it needs to be managed. 3. Causes of information overload Information itself is a leading source of information overload. As previously mentioned unnecessary or unwanted information can overload the receiver of that information. Furthermore, the complexity of some information with links to other sources and references and cross references can add to the burdens of the recipient. In essence, disseminators of information are too lazy to summarise the information sent or they do not have the capacity to do so and merely forward information without considering the needs of the receiver. This assertion is somewhat supported by Farhoomand and Drury (2002) who found that some people experience difficulty in understanding information, which impact on their ability to manage irrelevant and unimportant information. They are firmly of the belief that the multitude of information sources and limited time available to understand the information also leads to information overload. Eppler and Mengis (2004a) identified five main causes of information overload (Figure 1). Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 7 Figure 1: Causes of information overload Multiple sources of information Lack of time to understand information Causes of information overload Irrelevance or unimportance of information Too much information Difficult to Manage Information The main cause of information overload is the numerous sources of information. Information overload may also be caused as a result of an increase in the amount of information available. Likewise, the increasing volume of information can lead to difficulty in managing this information. The increase in diversity of information from different sources can produce information to be irrelevant and unimportant. Overload can also develop from a lack of time to digest and comprehend the available information. These five possible causes of information overload as depicted in Figure 1 will be discussed further in the ensuing sections. 3.1 Multiple sources of information Multiple sources of information are one of the main causes of information overload. During the last century, advances in communication systems has changed the way businesses operate to increase in the amount of information in the workplace (Browne 1999). According to Velez (2008) modern technology has enabled organisations to access more, detailed information faster than ever before. With the rapid development of computers, Internet and mobile technology, information dissemination is no longer limited to newspapers, radio, television and other traditional media (Wenqian, Tong & Rui 2011). The following are modern sources of information which are adding to the information burdens of the modern worker: interaction with employees, employers, colleagues, friends via e-mail (Sparrow 1999); mobile phones (Raoufi 2003); blogs and rich site summary (RSS) feeds (Simperl et al. 2010); corporate social media (Bergamaschi, Guerra & Leiba 2010); electronic access to one’s own company records via intranets (Jackson & Smith 2011); access to public information from the internet (Jackson & Smith 2011; Yamin & Ramayah 2011). Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 8 It is evident from this list that employees are being bombarded with information due to improvements in technology. Information is crucial to the success of organisations and as part of their job employees have to cope with volumes of information originating from multiple sources which cannot be ignored (Edmunds & Morris 2000).The smartphone has added to this by making corporate information available in the palm of one’s hands 24/7. What is worse is when an employee is provided with a company smartphone they are expected to be contactable at all times. When does an employee switch-off? 3.2 Too much information Having too much information uses considerable time which is the second major cause of information overload (Edmunds & Morris 2000). According to Verdot, Christophe, Toubiana and Beauvais (2011), improvements in network technologies over the past coupled with the Internet and Web 2 has resulted in exponentially increasing the amount of information users have to wade through. Information workers the world over have to process about 300 billion emails, 200 million tweets, and 2.5 billion text messages resulting in an age of information superabundance (Wellmon 2012). Velez (2008) stated that with modern technology, transparency requirements and globalization of markets has made more detailed and up to date information available to firms. The large volumes of information are distracting employees and moreover they are having difficulties developing strategies for dealing with large quantities of information (Waddington 1996). With the sheer volume of constantly increasing information, how to acquire useful information quickly and effectively has developed into a major problem (Yuanliang, Boyi & Hongming 2011). 3.3 Difficult to manage information Employers and employees are becoming frustrated when faced with the tedious task of searching for relevant documents and information within an organisation or on the Internet (Kelly, Fu & Shah 2010; Jackson & Smith 2011; Yamin & Ramayah 2011). Due to the difficulty in finding relevant information, the role of search engines has become all the more important in modern organisations (Kobayashi, Misue, Shizuki & Tanaka 2006; Jackson & Smith 2011). 3.4 Irrelevance or unimportance of information According to Wenqian, Tong and Rui (2011) search engines solve the basic needs of information retrieval, but they cannot track the latest information in the most timely and effective way. Therefore only some of the information retrieved is relevant which highlights the third cause of information overload which is the irrelevance or unimportance of information available. This suggests that it is getting more difficult to actually determine what information is actually important. Overload of the same message drowns that message out into the sea of irrelevance (Strother & Fazal 2011). Similarly, Mosig (2012) found that identifying relevant information is a major problem faced by decision makers as they are constantly bombarded by useless information. Medical practitioners face the same challenge as a large and irrelevant amount of information is disseminated to them especially when they require information to help them in making medical decisions for an individual patient’s situation (Hsu et al. 2012). Overload has been known to arise in areas Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 9 of project management, marketing and communication (Eppler & Mengis 2004b). Since only a very small part of the masses of online information is required people have to spend a lot of time to find and integrate the information they need (Wenqian, Tong & Rui 2011), as such people need more personalised information. 3.5 Lack of time to understand information Lack of time to understand information is another cause of information overload. Heavy information load has a negative impact on an employee’s work performance when measured in terms of accuracy and speed (Eppler & Mengis 2004b). Due to time pressures, workers do not have sufficient time to handle all of the information retrieved/received (MacDonald, Bath & Booth 2011). Moreover, there is not enough time for users of information to use the available information properly in order to take correct action for situation assessment and decision making tasks (Detsis, Dritsas & Kostaras 2001). Franz (1999) supports this by stating that it takes less time to access information but more time is required to make decisions as the decision maker has to take time to understand the mass of information first. Paul and Nazareth (2010) demonstrated that more complex information and time pressure may cause information overload. To process large volumes of information can be time consuming thereby causing stress which subsequently affects decision making (Edmunds & Morris 2000). This section has identified some of the possible undesirable consequences of information overload. The literature also describes the effects and some countermeasures to address the causes and effects of information overload. The next section will present a synopsis of the effects of information overload. 4. Effects of information overload Hu and Chen (2011) found that information overload on employees firstly impaired the quality of work they produced and secondly it led to mental and psychological related issues. The Internet has allowed us to broadcast information within seconds to millions of people. The consequence of this ease of communication is a flood of irrelevant, vague, unclear and inaccurate data fragments (Heylighen 2002). Besides due to the accumulated number of these inaccurate, over and understatement fragments of information, confusion, misunderstanding and misinterpretation can occur as a result of too many choices or mixing up these information (Sparrow 1999; Heylighen 2002; Park & Jang 2012). There has been a constant improvement in the field of information technology and communication which has resulted if more storage and faster retrieval of information. But the human capability to process information has not increased as much as technology. The fact that humans have limits on the amount of information they can process and have clear limits with which the brain can process items in working memory have a net result on increasing stress on individuals (Heylighen 2002). This was reported by Shenk (1998) where he reported that information overload reduces attention span, upsets family life, affects our reasoning, take over our personal time and causes stress. Information overload also negatively affects staff productivity, quality of decision making and levels of stress (Waddington 1996). Furthermore, another effect of information Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 10 overload is the difficulty to make decisions due to the time spent searching, sorting and processing information (Farhoomand & Drury 2002). As mentioned, information overload can occur at personal and interpersonal levels but the collective consequence can severely harm organisational performance (Sacks, McAuley & Waddington 1997). Moreover, there is an important negative relationship between information overload and the fulfilment of job responsibilities, with information overload being perceived to be the most stressful (Yuanliang, Boyi & Hongming 2011). Information overload is associated with stress as it contributes to tension with colleagues and loss of job satisfaction (Waddington 1996). Furthermore, heavy information overload negatively affects the performance of an individual in terms of speed and accuracy. The discussion thus far has highlighted the causes and effects of information overload, however, it is important to also consider how organisations and individuals can curb or manage information overload in this age of information superabundance. 5. Measures to curb information overload There are multiple solutions to information overload similar to the multiple causes, and there is no single method that will fix the problem (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999). Previous studies on information overload do not only review major causes and effects, but likewise recommends possible effective countermeasures to tackle the problems associated to information overload. Eppler and Mengis (2004b) have synthesised the literature and group the major possible information overload countermeasures within five constructs (Figure 2). The solutions which have been suggested in this study fall into these five main constructs. Figure 2: Issues to consider for managing information overload Personal factors Information characteristics Task and process paramaters Organisational design Information technology application Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 11 Each of these five factors will be described further in the ensuing sections. 5.1 Personal factors Personal factors are one of the major reasons why organisations or individuals are faced with information overload. Different people may show different perceptions of information overload when faced with the same amount and type of information (Prasitratanaporn 2010). Milord and Perry (1977) found that the level of information overload an individual faces is subjective and depends on the individual’s personality traits such as imagination, reserve, complexity, and emotionality. Furthermore, Eppler and Mengis (2004a) propose that personal factors are made up of multiple components such as motivation, attitude, satisfaction, experience, skills, age and level of social communication, which impact on an individual’s information processing capacity. This was confirmed by de Bakker (2007) who found that that the perception of overload is higher among beginners than experts. Furthermore, Jackson and Farzaneh (2012) indicate that people with less experience and motivation tend to be affected more by information overload. One of the remedies to information overload proposed by Bawden and Robinson (2008) is for an individual to take control of his/her information environment by using methods such as time management, desk management, critical thinking, information presentation, better information organisation, and appropriate use of information technology. For example, effective time management can help managers reduce information overload by filtering information through priorities and selecting required information for completing their tasks (Haksever & Fisher 1996). Another important aspect that helps information flow in the organisation is an effective filing system which can result in better time management and alleviating information overload (Haksever & Fisher 1996). 5.2 Information characteristics The general purpose information in a workplace is to inform, persuade and make the correct decision, and we should therefore be interested in the quality and kind of information. Owen (1992) stresses that due to increasing workload more emphasis should be placed on the quality of information and not on the quantity of information. Sparrow (1999) emphasises that for individuals to process information properly information must be of high quality with rich and sophisticated linkage. Furthermore, Eppler and Mengis (2004b) identify these various characteristics or qualities of information such as novelty, ambiguity, uncertainty, intensity and complexity can cause or reduce information overload. The effects of information overload can be diminished if measures are enforced to ensure that information is of high value Edmunds and Morris (2000), represented correctly and properly documented (Herbig & Kramer 1994). Therefore refining the quality of information can help an individual to process information more efficiently. 5.3 Task and standard process Information overload is dependent on not just the flow of information and ideas, but on the operating processes and tasks. For example, information overload can be caused by simultaneous input of information into the process (Grisé & Gallupe 1999). Grisé and Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 12 Gallupe (1999)state further that it is essential to identify processes that can curtail overload and enhance integration of information. Edmunds and Morris (2000); Bawden (2001); Eppler and Mengis (2004b) support this by suggesting that one of the countermeasures to information overload caused by organisational processes is to standardise operating processes which should be done with the process team and information specialist. Furthermore, information overload may also arise during group meeting. Grisé and Gallupe (1999) purport that there is a need to identify and better understand those group processes that can minimize overload and enable better integration of information during these group meetings. This can be accomplished by using a human facilitator who can control the number of ideas to be organised by removing redundant concepts, or grouping similar ideas prior to presenting the ideas to the group. With the diverse types, varying quality and multiple sources of information, enterprises must design efficient processes to capitalise on employees’ skills and experiences. On the other hand, recent studies show that the adopted style of decision making process can have a positive or negative effect on the level of information overload in the organisation (Bettis-Outland 2012). For example, a study by Eisenhardt and Bourgeois III (1988) argues that fast decision makers utilise more information and develop more alternatives, in comparison to slow decision makers. Accordingly the processes defined within an organisation can result in either increase or decrease in information overload. 5.4 Organisational design As mentioned above, information overload at the organisational level affects the performance of the organisation as it is difficult to make quality decisions with the large volumes of information received. Eppler and Mengis (2004b) reported that a critical issue that affects the incidence of information overload is the organisational design of the company. For instance, with globalisation and centralisation there is a need for more intensive communication and coordination which necessitates more information processing requirements which can in turn introduce information overload (Bawden 2001; MacDonald, Bath & Booth 2011). In an organisational context, as described by Prasitratanaporn (2010), information overload occurs frequently in centralised organisations as information systems and business processes become more integrated. Conversely, improving organisational design with better standards, common procedures and rules can decrease the information processing requirements and therefore reduce information overload (Schick, Gordon & Haka 1990). Moreover, Zhuang, Qiu and Peng (2011) report that the occurrence of information overload in an organisation is an indication that the organisation is failing to adequately utilise corporate resources to filter relevant information. Schick, Gordon and Haka (1990) defined the quality of decisions made by an individual associates positively with the quantity of information obtained up to a threshold point, and ignore extra information received after the threshold. (Zhuang, Qiu & Peng 2011) added that as this threshold point will determine how much information would be included in decision making it will also define the information flow depending on the structure of the organisation. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 13 5.5 Information technology application Information overload can be reduced by making use of information technology for filtering and prioritising the information (Baez, Birukou, Casati & Marchese 2010; Schornac & Beck 2011). As previously stated, information technology has contributed to a large extent to the problem of information overload and thus should also provide some filtering facilities to reduce it (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999). Ireland (1999) argued that locating the information people need to do their job now becomes the key issue. For instance, 10% of employee time is used for finding suitable information for completing their jobs (Dubie 2006). Therefore there is a requirement for more advanced search engines to retrieve to the best informational resources (Baez et al. 2010; Jackson & Smith 2011). Filtering is another way to manage information overload by sifting interesting knowledge through the vast amounts of available information (Raoufi 2003). According to Detsis, Dritsas and Kostaras (2001), a beneficial filter should remove irrelevant information when identified but at the same time it has to preserve sufficient information to make decisions. Moreover, organisations are now starting to use highly advanced search engines to search the full text of all files stored within their systems (Jackson & Smith 2011). Five broad factors that must be considered to manage information overload have been described. It must be noted that normally one or a combination of these five factors can cause information overload (Eppler & Mengis 2004b). Besides there are overlaps and contradictions with the causes, effects and counter measures described so far in this paper. The next section further details these contradictions. 6. Contradictions During the review of previous studies in terms of the causes, effects and countermeasures to information overload, some contradictions have emerged in the literature. For instance, Farhoomand and Drury (2002) identified the lack of time to understand information as one of the causes of information overload, however, Klausegger, Sinkovics and Zou (2007) classified it as an effect of information overload. It is these contradictions that create uncertainty in the understanding of information overload. Table 2 summarises the concept of information overload in terms of its cause, effect and countermeasures as previously described. It must be noted the summary (Table 2) shows a disparity which suggests that whilst countermeasures can help tackle information overload they can also become causes of it. Furthermore, the overlapping between the causes and effects is clearly shown in Table 2. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 14 Table 2: Information overload - Causes, effects and countermeasures Cause Multiple sources of information Too much information Difficult to manage information Irrelevance of unimportance of information Lack of time to understand information Effect  Too much information  Difficult to manage information  Irrelevance of unimportance of information  Identification and selection of relevant information becomes increasingly difficult  Lack of time to understand information  Tension within colleagues  Ignoring valid information Countermeasure  Task and standard process  Organisational design  Personal factors  Task and standard process  Organisational design  Affects staff productivity  Poor decision making  Mental and psychological related issues  Performance in terms of speed and accuracy is lowered  Impaired quality of work  Poor decision making  Personal factors  Task and standard process  Impaired quality of work  Mental and psychological related issues  Fulfilment of job responsibilities  Tension within colleagues  Performance in terms of speed and accuracy  Personal factors  Task and standard process  Information technology application  Information characteristics  Information technology application A valuable implication of Table 2 is its potential for use in comparative studies and the development of new frameworks to measure information overload. This is possible by mapping and comparing existing information overload situations in different industries to the components specified in Table 2. Furthermore, several other contemporary issues have risen which has encouraged interest and discussion in this topic. These issues include increasing one-time reading and selective reading (Liu 2005), cognitive strain and stress (Schick, Gordon & Haka 1990), generate the potential for un-justified risk taking and error (Sparrow 1999), poor decision (Krinn 2011) and loss of job satisfaction (Bawden, Holtham & Courtney 1999) among others. Assessing these concerns will offer a framework for additional policy initiatives. It also emphasizes gaps in the literature which is beneficial in identifying areas for future research that need to be addressed, especially in a South African context where the explosion of information is not that widespread and not much literature exists on the subject compared to the Western, European and Asian countries. Overall, this paper has shown that the problem of information overload has a negative effect on both individuals and organisations. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications Durban, 7-9 November 2012 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-55590-6 15 7. Conclusion The rapid development of the Internet has increased the number of information sources which in turn has increased exponentially the amount of information available to us. Subsequently, the way to acquire useful information promptly and effectively from limitless amounts of information has become a major problem for individuals and organisations alike. Whilst decisions rely heavily on abundant information, technology has created a superabundance of information which is impacting negatively on people. Studies thus far have focused mostly on the Western and Asian countries but none on African countries. Taking Western and Asian solutions and trying to impose them in African contexts is not enough. More research is required to increase the knowledge and understanding of information overload as it is being experienced in Africa. This literature review will serve as the basis for an empirical study. References Ackoff, R.L. 1967, Management Misinformation Systems. Management Science, 14(4), pp.147-156. Baez, M., Birukou, A., Casati, F. & Marchese, M. 2010, Addressing Information Overload in the Scientific Community. Internet Computing, IEEE, 14(6), pp.31-38. Bawden, D. 2001, Information overload. Library & Information Briefings, 92, pp.1-15. Bawden, D., Holtham, C. & Courtney, N. 1999, Perspectives on information overload. Aslib Proceedings, 51(8), pp.249-255. Bawden, D. & Robinson, L. 2008, The dark side of information: overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies. Journal of Information Science, 20(10), pp.1-8. 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