Shared and Distributed Team Cognition and Information Overload

This chapter discusses information overload (IO) from a team level perspective. Organizational team research underlines the importance of emergent knowledge structures in work groups, so-called team cognition. Two types of team cognition are introduced that are closely related to IO, namely shared team mental models and transactive memory systems. After a brief introduction of the concepts, empirical evidence about the impact of team cognition on dysfunctional IO as well as functional information exchange are presented. In the second part of the chapter, strategies and tools for adapting team cognition in high IO situations are introduced. The focus on team level constructs in IO research complements individual, technical, and organizational approaches to IO by underlining the importance of team knowledge structures in social systems.

Perpetual Mobile Availability as a Reason for Communication Overload

Mobile communication media such as smartphones have dramatically increased the social availability of users. The perpetual contact is experienced quite ambivalently, not only as a big advantage of technological development but also as a new reason for increasing communication overload. This chapter details how people evaluate mobile availability in their everyday lives and how they cope with experiences of overload and stress. Using the transactional theory of stress and coping (Lazarus & Cohen, 1977), data from a diary study and qualitative interviews with German smartphone users are analyzed. The findings emphasize the high level of subjectivity that influences how everyday experiences of smartphone usage and mobile availability are evaluated.

Email Overload

In this chapter email overload is presented as a component of information overload and some of its causes and consequences are identified. Furthermore, an analysis on the skills required to deal with information overload is made. Then, a critical literature review about the concept of email overload is realized, stressing aspects such as the amount of messages, personal characteristics and skills or technological issues. Solutions for this organizational problem are presented based on relevant case studies from the literature review. Key components to consider in email overload management are also identified, including information management techniques and technological options, training, time management and information behavior (individual and organizational).

Information Overload as a Challenge and Changing Point for Educational Media Literacies

This article deals with the concept of information overload as a crucial element of the changing information environment. Against this background, the authors discuss an alternative process for the conceptualisation of educational media literacy. By combining two nationally-based concepts on media literacy (German and Anglo-American), the yield of such a transnational approach will be demonstrated. The first section is dedicated to a historical overview. Based on the observation that humanity is currently dealing and always has dealt with information overload, leads to the necessity of coping with said overload. To this end, the second section will present and didactically reduce both discourses to their essentials. The third section provides a possible conceptualisation of both concepts and practical application of the combined approach for scholastic learning. The aim of this paper is to stimulate an international exchange on media literacy.

Information Management in Fab Labs

Information is managed avoiding overload in Fab Labs, digital manufacturing environments. Collaborative spaces like Maker Spaces, Hacker Spaces, Tech Shops and Fab Labs are intended to stimulate innovation, through the exchange and sharing of information, knowledge, and experience among its members. They leverage innovation stimulating the creativity of its participants and enabling the creation of products and solutions based on personal projects, developed communally. With the motto “Learn, Make, Share,” these spaces aim to empower its members for the realization of local and community-based sustainable solutions, using open source tools and equipment's, to allow every member the possibility of creating low cost products, with the ability to very quickly show the viability of these ideas through the acceptance by the community, that will make these solutions evolve collaboratively. It will be analyzed and described how Fab Labs manage their information to avoid information overload, maximizing the networking amongst its members.

The Fishtank Paradigm of Experience

Time management as an important source of wellbeing is here described along with the opportunities to link this activity to physical space, contacts and mobile personal cloud. The user-centered design of a novel agenda is the theme of this chapter. Some user studies were carried on, concept design and rough evaluations followed. The fishtank paradigm of interaction is here presented. It overcomes the linear perception of time and provides a gradient of devices for attention starting from peripheral awareness to proper notification according to the urgency of the tasks to execute. The final aim of the project is to support prospective as like as autobiographical memory in order to live the present time at its' fullest.

Information Overload in Augmented Reality

This chapter explores the benefits and challenges of using augmented reality (AR) technology in outdoor sports environments. Questions emerge about the presentation of information more appropriate to give a user without being excessive. The aim is to assess the problems related with information overload before implementing an AR system to be used in outdoors environments. Solutions are listed to manage and interact, the best way, with the information on the mobile device of AR, and achieve social acceptance. The Solutions and Recommendations answer through an empirical research about what data are more appropriate without information overload for outdoor sports. Finally, to better understand, an AR Mockup example frame AR components of information and possible features, which represent the ideal display for sportsman, without information and communication overload.

Developing Healthy Habits in Media Consumption

In the contemporary media ecosystem, online consumption is framed and characterized by a number of general elements. These key factors are: a) the overabundance of information available to users (information overload); b) the speed of online interaction; c) the emergence of attention as currency; d) the multiplicity of different screens; and e) the socialization of consumption. This chapter, grounded on a comprehensive literature review, first provides a description of these elements. A digital diet is then proposed based on the development of three areas: knowing how to use the technological tools and applications to deal with information overload; learning how to manage attention and cognitive overload; and, finally, establishing regular periods of digital disconnection. The conclusion is that practicing these healthy habits leads to more useful and effective media consumption.

Managing Information, Communication and Technologies in Schools

One of the most crucial areas in which information and technologies need to be managed in our information-rich society is in schools. Whilst information overload is often associated with organisations or social communication, schools represent the intersection of several stakeholders for whom information and communication must be managed effectively. Using a case study of a school in a Gulf State, this chapter analyses how mismanagement and miscommunication relating to the use of ICT is hindering the educational progress of children by examining school/teacher-pupil interaction; home-school communication, and; the application of ICT in the curriculum. It presents a professional and parental perspective on how the use and management of information technologies and effective communication are critical in maintaining acceptable levels of educational achievement. It draws on the experiences of both pupils and parents and uses a framework of participant observation to illustrate the problems of information overload as mismanagement and miscommunication.

Photographers without Photographs

The modern society establishes a complex relationship that combines the visual overload derived from technology insertion which is adapted to the today´s needs and executed through devices swiftly embraced. In this certain sense, one of the most overloaded environments currently is, in fact, the photography. The internet and digital mass media development have promoted to get a surprising image surplus, impossible to distinguish between the real occurrence and the photographic observed event. Therefore, is necessary to contemplate a sustainable scenario in photography. It must determinate a balance between images which are produced, consumed and those which can be assumed by society. The photography evolution and the new denomination PostPhotography installs a brand new discourse initially literal, linked to words and needing a unit of speech to make exist the images.