Information has become ubiquitous because producing, manipulating, and disseminating it is now cheap and easy. But might perceptions of information overload have less to do with quantity than with the qualities by which knowledge is presented?

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Information Overload in the
Attention Economy
Olivier Serrat
2014

2. A Modern Encyclopédie
In the 21st century,
exploring the
distinction between
information and
knowledge is the
most important
thing we should do.
As long as the centuries continue to
unfold, the number of books will grow
continually, and one can predict that a
time will come when it will be almost as
difficult to learn anything from books as
from the direct study of the whole
universe. It will be almost as convenient to
search for some bit of truth concealed in
nature as it will be to find it hidden away
in an immense multitude of bound
volumes.
—Denis Diderot

3. The Great Information Glut
Information is ubiquitous because producing, manipulating, and
disseminating it is cheap and easy. The digital world provides a
myriad means: distance no longer matters.
We generate (create), collect (capture), store (record), process
(manage), transmit (share), use (consume), recycle (discard),
and plan (identify) information throughout the day.
Electronic mail remains the communication channel of choice
but instant messaging and social media posts are two
technologies that increasingly challenge it.
Data smog, infobesity, infoxication, and—more commonly—
information glut are rich metaphors to describe the deluge of
information that overloads our brains.

4. Is Information Necessarily Good?
Is more
information
necessarily
good?
Although we may be becoming better at capturing and
storing information, there are processing limitations.
In reaction to the overabundance of interpretations, we
may avoid making decisions, or even drawing conclusions.
Without knowing the validity of content, we run the risk of
misinformation.
Are important discoveries, accomplishments, or initiatives
being missed because vital information is buried under?
With the increase in channels of information, people
seem to have abandoned storytelling, the age-old
technique that every society used to educate, entertain,
preserve culture, and instill moral values.

5. The Information Economy
… (I)n an information-rich world, the wealth of information
means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is
that information consumes. What information consumes is
rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence
a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a
need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
overabundance of information sources that might consume it …
A relatively straightforward way of measuring how much scarce
resource a message consumes is by noting how much time the
recipient spends on it.
—Herbert Simon

6. On Attention
Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a
system exceeds its processing capacity. Where content has
grown in abundance and availability, attention becomes the
limiting factor in the consumption of information. Thomas
Davenport and John Beck define attention as focused mental
engagement on a particular item of information. They also
define the attention economy as one where the scarcest
resource is not ideas or even talent but human attention. In
the attention economy, channels of information constantly
compete to attract the largest share of that.

7. The Need To Know
It is not enough to know how much it costs to produce and
transmit information; we must also know how much it costs, in
terms of scarce attention, to receive it … The design principle
that attention is scarce and must be preserved is very different
from a principle of "the more information the better." The
change in information-processing technology demands a
fundamental change in the meaning attached to the familiar
verb "to know."
—Herbert Simon

8. Per Aspera Ad Astra
In a knowledge-rich world, progress does not lie in the direction
of reading and writing information faster or storing more of it.
Progress lies in the direction of extracting and exploiting the
patterns of the world so that far less information needs to be
read, written, or stored … The exploration of the moon is a great
adventure. After the moon, there are objects still farther out in
space. But man's inner space, his, mind, is less well known than
the space of the planets …
—Herbert Simon

9. Cutting Info-Pollution
We can be smart agents: there are ways to manage our
individual signal-to-noise ratios, for example, by not "carbon-
copying" electronic mail to all. But, as primary sources of data
smog, organizations should explore ways to contribute too.
They might formulate strategies to eliminate duplication or
exchange of unnecessary information. (Some argue that the
issue is not information overload but filter failure; others see
information overload as organization underload.)
Technological solutions that organizations might introduce
promise relief: for instance, software can automatically sort
and prioritize incoming electronic mail to regulate or divert
the deluge.

10. Communicating Knowledge
Then again, given our propensity for
attention economy, is it possible that
perceptions of information overload have
less to do with the quantity of information
in production or circulation at any time
than with the qualities by which
knowledge is presented? Might the
biggest drain on our time simply be
ineffective communication? For sure,
there will always be demand for good
knowledge products. Yet, paradoxically,
content providers often do not
understand how to disseminate well.
It is with words
as with
sunbeams. The
more they are
condensed, the
deeper they
burn.
—Robert
Southey

11. Showcasing Knowledge
Dissemination of knowledge is just as important as its
production. High-performance organizations (i) adopt a
strategic approach to dissemination; (ii) know their target
audiences; (iii) formulate generic, viable dissemination
strategies that can be amended to suit different purposes; (iv)
hit the target; and (v) monitor and evaluate their
accomplishments. Good marketing is essential to this and
information sheets are a key element of effective outreach. In
a crowded marketplace, a concise well-written summary and
its calibrated dissemination allow readers to easily gain
information and understanding that is found more deeply in
the document summarized. Knowledge that is available but
not summarized might just as well be lost, even if it is in
context.

12. Further Reading
• ADB. 2010. Showcasing Knowledge. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/showcasing-knowledge
• ——. 2012. On Decision Making. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/on-decision-making
• ——. 2012. Communications for Development Outcomes.
Manila. digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intl/266/
• Herbert Simon. 1971. Designing Organizations for an
Information-Rich World. In Martin Greenberger (Ed.).
Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest. The
Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Thomas Davenport and John Beck. 2001. The Attention
Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business.
Harvard Business School Press.

13. Videos
• ADB. 2012. Showcasing Knowledge. Manila.
vimeo.com/67185514

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