Jakob Nielsen On 'Information Pollution'

Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, warns that "Information pollution is information overload taken to the extreme. It's where it stops being a burden and becomes an impediment to your ability to get your work done." His suggested strategies for coping with this situation are: Manage your time and prioritize your tasks; create multiple e-mail accounts, and shunt some mail to folders you will look at later; don't be indiscriminate about sending e-mail to people; get a good spam filter; and don't be event-driven by chasing after e-mail alerts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3171376.stm
(BBC News 13 Oct 2003)

Nielsen says: "The entire ideology of information technology for the last 50 years has been that more information is better, that mass producing information is better," but the Web has mutated into a "procrastination apparatus" that spews more information than can be absorbed, and e-mail is worse because it is a weird mix of personal and mass communication. "If people don't develop really harsh counter-measures, it will basically destroy their ability to use the computer in any productive way and it becomes the ruler of your time... Ultimately, time is a non-renewable resource. Once that day is gone, it is never coming back."

Posted by Tom on October 27, 2003