32
INFORMATION OVERLOAD Summary The customer sought information was articles, reports, studies on the ―Information overload phenomena‖. The researcher has categorized information as Information overload, data traffic and information consumption. Comprehensive research was conducted as per customer requirements through separate searches. To view details of the methodology undertaken and challenges encountered within the process of this research: please click The summary of the findings are as follows: Section 1 - Information Overload In 2010, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information will be created, according to a new "Digital Universe" study from IDC sponsored by IT firm EMC Corporation. International Data Corp. reports that the digital universe will hit 1.8 zettabytes (a zettabyte is 1 billion terabytes) by 2011. Information Overload would be the 2008 ―Problem-of-the-Year.‖ Overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion per year, it appears that it will be 2009’s problem as well. Workers spend up to 50 percent of their day managing information. Section 2 - Information Clutter Knowledge workers spend their days, according to Basex: - 28%-Unnecessary interruptions followed by "recovery time" to get back on track - 25%-Creating content-productive! - 20%-Meetings-some productive, some not - 15%-Searching for information (and an estimated 50% of searches fail) - 12%-Thinking and reflecting Reducing the time wasted dealing with information overload by 15% could save a company with 500 employees more than $2 million a year. Cutting the wasted time by just 15% through automation would save U.S. enterprises more than $270 billion. 62 percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information to find what they need; 68 percent wish they could spend less time organizing information and more time using the information that comes their way. In an 8.89-hour average workday, employees said they spent 7.89 hours conducting research, attending meetings and searching for documents, the survey found.

Information Overload Phenomena

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

Highlights from a global productivity survey of 2,000 knowledge workers indicate that approximately 6.78 hours per week are spent managing and consolidating information such as documents, emails and web research. UK spends 7.08 hours per week managing information whilst France spends 6.69 hours and Germany spends 5.91 hours per week. In USA Information Overload costs a minimum of $900 billion per year in lowered employee productivity and reduced innovation. This is a fairly conservative number and reflects the loss of 25% of the employee’s day Highlights from a global productivity survey of 2,000 knowledge workers indicate that approximately 6.78 hours per week are spent managing and consolidating information such as documents, emails and web research. UK spends 7.08 hours per week managing information whilst France spends 6.69 hours and Germany spends 5.91 hours per week. In USA Information Overload costs a minimum of $900 billion per year in lowered employee productivity and reduced innovation. This is a fairly conservative number and reflects the loss of 25% of the employee’s day

Citation preview

Page 1: Information Overload Phenomena

IINNFFOORRMMAATTIIOONN OOVVEERRLLOOAADD

Summary

The customer sought information was articles, reports, studies on the ―Information overload

phenomena‖. The researcher has categorized information as Information overload, data traffic and

information consumption.

Comprehensive research was conducted as per customer requirements through separate searches. To

view details of the methodology undertaken and challenges encountered within the process of this

research: please click

The summary of the findings are as follows:

Section 1 - Information Overload

In 2010, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information will be created, according to a new "Digital Universe"

study from IDC sponsored by IT firm EMC Corporation.

International Data Corp. reports that the digital universe will hit 1.8 zettabytes (a zettabyte is 1 billion

terabytes) by 2011.

Information Overload would be the 2008 ―Problem-of-the-Year.‖

Overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion per year, it appears that it will be 2009’s

problem as well.

Workers spend up to 50 percent of their day managing information.

Section 2 - Information Clutter

Knowledge workers spend their days, according to Basex:

- 28%-Unnecessary interruptions followed by "recovery time" to get back on track

- 25%-Creating content-productive!

- 20%-Meetings-some productive, some not

- 15%-Searching for information (and an estimated 50% of searches fail)

- 12%-Thinking and reflecting

Reducing the time wasted dealing with information overload by 15% could save a company with

500 employees more than $2 million a year. Cutting the wasted time by just 15% through

automation would save U.S. enterprises more than $270 billion.

62 percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant

information to find what they need; 68 percent wish they could spend less time organizing

information and more time using the information that comes their way.

In an 8.89-hour average workday, employees said they spent 7.89 hours conducting research,

attending meetings and searching for documents, the survey found.

Page 2: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

2

Contd. Summary

Section 2 - Information Clutter Contd

Conservative estimates by IDC suggest that an organisation with 1,000 employees wastes at least $2.5

million per year by failing to find existing information, searching for outdated information, or

recreating information that is outdated and poorly designed.

Highlights of the average number of hours spent globally per week by knowledge workers on the four

main business activities include: 9.00 hours a week is spent on preparing, running and

summarising actions for meetings while 6.78 hours are spent managing and consolidating

information such as documents, emails and web research.

UK comes last in information management, spending 7.08 hours per week, with France spending

6.69 and Germany 5.91 hours.

Section 3 - How Information Overload Affects Employers

Harvard Business Review found that the average worker today spends 40% of the work day merely

processing information. This translates into only 60% of the average work day being spent on true

value creation activities. 40% of the payroll costs are spent handling the overload. The more time

spent on processing information and not creating value, the less a company earns.

Employees lose 28% in distraction which is their time at full pay that they aren't producing any value

for the employer.

Manager’s report spending an average of 42% of their time on administrative tasks.

The administrative overload is greatest in Spain and the United Kingdom.

The analysis also found that for every 1 point reduction in the amount of supervisors’ available time,

worker unproductive time falls by 0.1 percentage points.

Section 4 – Data Traffic

The rapid growth of data consumption is real, has been observed by many operators.

Growing problem of mobile data consumption vs. revenue: perhaps 100X growth of aggregate data vs.

2X growth of revenue (in the next 5 years)

App Store, has defined a model of data services on demand that is widely appealing, with 500 M

downloads in less than a year of operation, establishing that there is a large market for data services.

Page 3: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

3

Contd. Summary

Section 5 - Information Consumption

5.1 U.S Information Consumption

Roughly 3.6 zettabytes (or 3,600 exabytes) of information were consumed in American homes in 2008.

The big winner is still television at almost 45 percent of our daily allowance, but the computer is a not-

too-distant second at about 27 percent.

In all, we spend about 11.8 hours per day absorbing mass quantities of information, sometimes

multitasking in front of multiple screens simultaneously.

5.2 Metadata

In 2008, non-textual media storage requirements (audio, music, images, and video) were an estimated

16 exabytes. (An exabyte is a billion Gbytes.)

Subscription-based and download media sales totaled $3.3 billion in 2008

5.3 Data Superabundance

Enterprise Data Growth in the next 5 years is estimated to be 650%

80% of this data will be unstructured data

40 exabytes* of unstructured new information will be generated worldwide in 2009

IDC estimated the amount of data stored worldwide in 2007 was nearly 300 exabytes, and that this

number will grow ten-fold by 2011.

Methodologies and Challenges

Search was directed towards details about Information Overload.

The researcher has provided a global outlook of information overload from the productivity

perspective. However, most of the studies conducted mainly concentrated on USA.

The researchers have extracted information from several sources. This was quite time consuming

as an extensive reading of articles were required.

The researcher spent maximum time utilized for the query.

Page 4: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................. 1

SECTION 1 – INFORMATION OVERLOAD .................................................................................... 5

SECTION 2 – INFORMATION CLUTTER ..................................................................................... 10

SECTION 3 – HOW INFORMATION OVERLOAD AFFECTS EMPLOYERS ......................... 22

SECTION 4 - DATA TRAFFIC .......................................................................................................... 24

SECTION 5 - INFORMATION CONSUMPTION ........................................................................... 27

5.1 U.S INFORMATION CONSUMPTION ................................................................................................ 27

5.2 METADATA ................................................................................................................................... 29

5.3 DATA SUPERABUNDANCE ............................................................................................................. 30

FEEDBACK .......................................................................................................................................... 32

WANT TO KNOW MORE DETAILS ABOUT OUR RESEARCH SERVICES? ........................ 32

Page 5: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

5

Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 1 - Zettabytes Now Needed to Describe Global Data Overload

Key Facts Humankind will generate over one sextillion bytes of digital information this year,

surging into the realm of the "zettabyte" as we create ever more electronic data.

In 2010, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information will be created, according to a

new "Digital Universe" study from IDC sponsored by IT firm EMC Corporation.

Even during the recession of 2009, the glut of digital information expanded 62

percent over the previous year to 800 billion gigabytes.

Source Date May 04,2010

Source http://www.technewsdaily.com/zettabytes-now-needed-to-describe-global-data-

overload-0513/

Article 2 - Data Glut! The Answer Is Innovation

Key Facts Data is piling up fast at almost every business, from financial corporations to

online shopping sites. Security log files, network events, transaction records. e-

mail and more are flooding firms with information.

International Data Corp. reports that the digital universe will hit 1.8

zettabytes (a zettabyte is 1 billion terabytes) by 2011.

That’s a tenfold increase in the next five years. IDC says growth is running at an

annual rate of 60 percent. And the cost of data management is significant

At Teradata we’re committed to innovation that’s keeping companies a couple

of steps out in front of the data information glut.

Teradata 13, our latest data warehouse database, reveals our deep commitment to

engineering excellence that provides a powerful system to work with the wide

variety of data that are pounding enterprise IT data systems.

Source Date February 15, 2010

Source http://www.basexblog.com/2008/12/19/information-overload-now-900-billion-what-

is-your-organizations-exposure/

Page 6: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

6

Contd. Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 3 - Causes of Information Overload

Key Facts Information overload is one of the pressing issues of today’s increasingly fast-paced,

complex and communication-intensive business world. As we have seen from this

chapter, reducing information overload is also the responsibility of communicators and

not just of those receiving information.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://s3.amazonaws.com/ppt-download/informationoverload-090702133826-

phpapp02.pdf?Signature=gm5npY0NxXsaR0F%2BCykZW6jh3Vs%3D&Expires=127

3783849&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJLJT267DEGKZDHEQ

Page 7: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

7

Contd. Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 4 - Calculating Information Overload – Find out Your Organization’s Cost

Key Facts A year ago, Basex announced that Information Overload would be the 2008

“Problem-of-the-Year.”

Now that we know that Information Overload costs the U.S. economy a

minimum of $900 billion per year, it appears that it will be 2009’s problem

as well.

Information Overload causes:

- Markedly lower productivity,

- Diminished comprehension levels,

- Compromised concentration levels,

- Less innovation.

According to a recent Basex survey, it also causes health problems: 35% of

knowledge workers experience work-related back and/or neck pain, carpal

tunnel syndrome, eye strain, headaches, or stress related symptoms.

Source Date January 13, 2009

Source http://www.iocalculator.com/

http://iorgforum.org/blog/2009/01/13/calculating-information-overload-find-out-your-

organizations-cost/

Page 8: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

8

Contd. Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 5 - Information Overload: Now $900 Billion

Key Facts Information overload describes an excess of information that results in the loss of

ability to make decisions, process information, and prioritize tasks.

It remains a key challenge for companies that operate in the knowledge economy

but it is nothing new. Indeed, it was very much on the minds of thought leaders of

an earlier information age centuries ago, including Roger Bacon, Samuel

Johnson, and Konrad Geßner whose 1545 Bibliotheca universalis warned of the

“confusing and harmful abundance of books” and promulgated reading strategies

for coping with the overload of information.

Workers spend up to 50 percent of their day managing information, according to

a recent survey conducted by Basex of more than 3,000 knowledge workers, and

streamlining these processes can have a significant impact on productivity. But

determining the extent of the problem is the first step.

Information Overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion per

year in lowered employee productivity and reduced innovation.

Despite its heft, this is a fairly conservative number and reflects the loss of 25%

of the knowledge worker’s day to the problem. The total could be as high as

$1 trillion.

Source Date December 19, 2008

Source http://www.basexblog.com/2008/12/19/information-overload-now-900-billion-what-

is-your-organizations-exposure/

Page 9: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

9

Contd. Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 6 - Six Communication Principles for Overload Environments

Key Facts We phrase these principles as paradoxes in order to motivate communicators to apply

those mechanisms carefully, e.g., balancing reduction and transformation based on

the specific communication context. Their sequence follows the goals of:

1. Getting attention.

2. Ensuring comprehension.

3. Fostering retention.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://s3.amazonaws.com/ppt-download/informationoverload-090702133826-

phpapp02.pdf?Signature=gm5npY0NxXsaR0F%2BCykZW6jh3Vs%3D&Expires=12

73783849&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJLJT267DEGKZDHEQ

Page 10: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

10

Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 1 - Tackling Information Overload

Key Facts The compelling statistic: Basex estimates, based on data it has gathered, that

information overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion a year in lost

productivity and reduced innovation.

Knowledge workers spend their days, according to Basex:

- 28%-Unnecessary interruptions followed by "recovery time" to get back

on track

- 25%-Creating content-productive!

- 20%-Meetings-some productive, some not

- 15%-Searching for information (and an estimated 50% of searches fail)

- 12%-Thinking and reflecting

Simple ways to save time and to manage information overload.

- Breathe-Schedule breaks in your work routine.

- Simplify your schedule-Schedule meetings on specific days, leaving others

free.

- Back it up

- Declutter your desktop (both of them).

- Touch it once-and respond, file, or delete.

- Forget the free stuff (choose quality over quantity).

- Use your tools, such as your smartphone.

- RSS reprieve-Sign up with an aggregator.

- Manage mobile madness-Use a mobile device and deal with things as they

arise.

Source Date May 04, 2009

Source http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Spotlight/Tackling-Information-Overload-53712.asp

Page 11: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

11

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 2 - Growth of Enterprise Information

Key Facts Each year the amount of information created in the enterprise, paper and digital

combined grows faster than 65%.

Non-productive information work, such as reformatting documents or

reentering documents into computers, consumed more than $1.5 trillion in

U.S. salaries last year.

Survey respondents spend as much as 26% of their time trying to manage

information overload.

Respondents split their time evenly between dealing with paper and digital

information, but 71% prefer to deal with digital information.

The amount of time U.S. information workers spent last year managing paper-

driven information overload cost $460 billion in salaries.

Respondents whose companies do a good job managing information overload rate

technology as a significant help.

Reducing the time wasted dealing with information overload by 15% could

save a company with 500 employees more than $2 million a year.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Page 12: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

12

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 3 - The Hidden Coast of Information Work

Key Facts Cutting the wasted time by just 15% through automation would save U.S.

enterprises more than $270 billion.

For a company with 500 information employees, that amounts to more than $2

million a year.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Page 13: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

13

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 4 - Benefits of Integrating Paper and Digital

Key Facts If their interactions with paper were eliminated entirely, they could save 40

minutes a day on average.

Companies whose respondents most suffered from information overload could

gain an additional 48 minutes.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Page 14: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

14

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 5 - Frequency of Information Overload

Key Facts In a global survey IDC conducted in 2008, we found that 75% of workers in

more than 1,000 large organizations said they suffered from information

overload.

Of those, 45% said they were ―overwhelmed.‖

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Page 15: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

15

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 6 - Types of Information Causing Information Overload

Key Facts The old information types never seem to go away – paper forms, documents,

drawings, data base output, emails, faxes, files and records, and phone messages.

Meanwhile, new forms have sprouted, from text and instant messages to blogs,

wikis, social networks, podcasts, digital images and sounds, and even digital

―stickies.‖

Page 16: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

16

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Article 7 - Industries Facing Information Overload

Key Facts Areas that produced the most paper output from their information system seemed to

be accounting and finance, administrative and executive departments, marketing, and

customer support.

Source Date March 2009

Source http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/n/nr_IDC_White_Paper_on_Information_O

verload.pdf

Page 17: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

17

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 8 - Workers Struggle with Data Overload

Key Facts Information overload is pushing workers to the brink and cutting into workplace

productivity, a recent survey by LexisNexis shows.

The survey, which polled 650 employees in a variety of industries, found 68

percent of respondents wished they could spend less time organizing

information and more time using it. Another 85 percent said not finding the

right information at the right time was a significant time waster, while 62

percent said they spent a lot of time sifting through useless information.

In an 8.89-hour average workday, employees said they spent 7.89 hours

conducting research, attending meetings and searching for documents, the

survey found.

Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis Legal Markets, said the results should

encourage businesses to invest in more efficient research technology and

tools.

―Companies that take action on this issue will realize higher employee

productivity and satisfaction,‖ Walsh said in a statement.

Source Date March 19, 2008/ December 2007

Source http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2008/03/19/workers-struggle-with-data-

overload/

http://www.lexisnexis.com/literature/pdfs/LexisNexis_Workplace_Productivity_Surve

y_2_20_08.pdf

Page 18: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

18

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 9 - How to Dig Out From the Information Avalanche

Key Facts Seven out of 10 office workers in the United States feel overwhelmed by

information in the workplace, and more than two in five say they are headed for

a data “breaking point,” according to a recently released Workplace

Productivity Survey, commissioned by LexisNexis — a provider of business

information solutions.

Here’s a breakdown of the findings:

- 62 percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting

through irrelevant information to find what they need; 68 percent wish

they could spend less time organizing information and more time using

the information that comes their way.

- Workers admit that not being able to lay their hands on the right information

at the right time impedes their ability to work efficiently; 85 percent agree

that not being able to access the right information at the right time is a huge

time-waster.

- More than 40 percent of the survey participants indicate an inability to

handle future increases in information flow.

- While an average workday for white-collar workers is 8.89 hours, the

survey finds that on average, 7.89 working hours are used conducting

research, attending meetings, and searching for previously created

documents.

- White-collar professionals spend an average of 2.3 hours daily conducting

online research, with one in 10 spending four hours or more on an

average day.

Source Date March 16, 2008

Source http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23636252/

Page 19: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

19

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 10 - Mindjet’s Value of an Hour Survey Reports Continued - Dramatic Results

Key Facts Mindjet’s global productivity survey of 2,000 knowledge workers has identified

key areas where information overload impacts performance and has calculated

that individuals can increase productivity by at least 3-5 hours per week,

depending on their organisational role and the time they spend on business activities.

Conservative estimates by IDC suggest that an organisation with 1,000 employees

wastes at least $2.5 million per year by failing to find existing information,

searching for outdated information, or recreating information that is outdated and

poorly designed. The opportunity costs are even greater, exceeding $15million

annually.

Highlights of the average number of hours spent globally per week by knowledge

workers on the four main business activities include: 9.00 hours a week is spent on

preparing, running and summarising actions for meetings while 6.78 hours are

spent managing and consolidating information such as documents, emails and

web research. For communication and collaboration such as building power

point presentations, writing documents with others and communicating the

results to colleagues takes 5.74 hours per week. Finally, 10.70 hours is spent on

project and task management.

European results show that the knowledge worker in the UK is slightly more efficient

than the rest of Europe in managing meeting effectiveness, spending 7.83 hours

per week as opposed to 9.55 hours in Germany. However, the UK comes last in

information management, spending 7.08 hours per week, with France spending

6.69 and Germany 5.91 hours. For communication and collaboration, the UK with

5.38 hours does slightly better than France’s 5.70 hours and worse than

Germany’s 4.72 hours. When it comes to project management, Germany is

supremely efficient spending 9.15 hours per week against the UK at 11.16 hours

and France at 11.33 hours.

Source Date February 26, 2008

Source http://www.realwire.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=7900

Page 20: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

20

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 11 - Mindjet’s Value of an Hour Survey - Average Hours Spent Each Week on

Information Management Related Activities

Key Facts Mindjet’s global productivity survey has reported that over six-and-a-half hours on

average is spent each week on information-management related activities:

Source Date February 26, 2008

Source http://www.mindjet.com/pdf/us/wp_successInformationEconomy.pdf

Page 21: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

21

Contd. Section 2 – Information Clutter

Article 12 - Mindjet’s Value of an Hour Survey - Information Overload Impacts Performance

Key Facts Based on Mindjet’s global productivity survey of 1,800 knowledge workers, we

identified key areas where information overload impacts performance.

Source Date February 26, 2008

Source http://www.mindjet.com/pdf/us/wp_successInformationEconomy.pdf

Page 22: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

22

Section 3 – How Information Overload Affects Employers

Article 1 - How Does Information Overload Affect Company Earnings?

Information overload can have a devastating effect on company earnings, and the danger is even more

detrimental if it goes unrecognized. A company comprised of overloaded individuals is going to

experience high turnover, low job satisfaction, missed financial forecasts, unproductive meetings, high

error rates in work products, operation at a frantic pace, and high levels of rework.

A recent study published in Harvard Business Review found that the average worker today spends

40% of the work day merely processing information. This translates into only 60% of the average

work day being spent on true value creation activities. 40% of the payroll costs are spent handling

the overload. The more time spent on processing information and not creating value, the less a

company earns.

Source: http://speedwithpurpose.com/overload.aspx

Article 2 - Tech Giants Tackle Information Overload

A large corporation in the tech industry has tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and if they lose 28

percent of their time to distraction, that's 28 percent of their time at full pay that they aren't

producing any value for the employer. The corporations have to think about that, too.

Companies also have to think about balancing their employees' lives. Information overload outside of

work, like using a BlackBerry on weekends or vacations, could hinder the work-life balance, leading to

decreased worker satisfaction. Zeldes also points out the problem is not just affecting technology

companies or large corporations.

Source Date: July 18, 2008

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-9993917-92.html

Page 23: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

23

Contd. Section 1 – Information Overload

Article 3 - How Supervisors can influence workforce productivity

Key Facts The ways in which supervisors spend their time influences their own productivity

and that of their workers.

Every 1 point increase in the amount of time a supervisor spends actively

supervising his or her employees translates into an increase in the amount of time

workers spend on productive activities of 0.2 points.

The analysis also found that for every 1 point reduction in the amount of

supervisors’ available time, worker unproductive time falls by 0.1 percentage

points.

Manager’s report spending an average of 42% of their time on administrative tasks.

The administrative overload is greatest in Spain and the United Kingdom.

Source Date 2008

Source http://www.alexanderproudfoot.com/WorkArea//DownloadAsset.aspx?id=254

Page 24: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

24

Section 4 - Data Traffic

Article 1 - Data Traffic Growing Faster Than Revenues

Growing problem of mobile data consumption vs. revenue: perhaps 100X growth of aggregate data

vs. 2X growth of revenue (in the next 5 years)

The rapid growth of data consumption is real, has been observed by many operators.

This growth has been driven by many factors, including flat-rate and modestly-priced data plans.

Rapid Increment of Data Traffic

Source Date: February 26, 2009

Source: http://imcellular.org/2009/02/26/problem-data-traffic-growing-faster-than-revenues/

Page 25: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

25

Contd. Section 4 – Data Traffic

Article 2 - Why Is Data Consumption Rapidly Increasing?

More Subscribers on Mobile Internet Data Plans

- Developed markets will easily see 40% of subscribers on a data plan by 2012, most on a ―Flat

Rate‖ plan that encourages use (without a penalty of incremental cost for incremental use)

- This trend is so strong that mobile Internet subscribers are expected to outnumber fixed

Internet subscribers in 2011.

More Capable Internet Devices

- IPhone has redefined how subscribers can use the mobile Internet, and established that the

masses can and will browse, use Location-Based Services, watch YouTube video, download

and install applications, and more.

- By 2011, 30% of the handsets sold in developed markets will be smartphones.

More Services Used

- End Users are consuming more services as a result of better devices and a wider variety of

applications.

Example, Apple’s App Store, has defined a model of data services on demand that is widely appealing,

with 500 M downloads in less than a year of operation, establishing that there is a large market for

data services.

Page 26: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

26

Contd. Section 4 – Data Traffic

Source Date: February 26, 2009

Source: http://imcellular.org/2009/02/26/problem-data-traffic-growing-faster-than-revenues/

Page 27: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

27

Section 5 - Information Consumption

5.1 U.S Information Consumption

Americans spend a huge amount of time at home receiving information, an average of 11.8 hours

per day.

Bytes of information consumed by U.S. individuals have grown at 5.4 percent annually since 1980,

far less than the growth rate of computer and information technology performance.

Roughly 3.6 zettabytes (or 3,600 exabytes) of information were consumed in American homes

in 2008.

Americans spend 41 percent of our information time watching television, but TV accounts

for less than 35 percent of information bytes consumed.

Computer and video games account for 55 percent of all information bytes consumed in the home,

because modern game consoles and PCs create huge streams of graphics.

The average American consumes 34 GB worth of content a day, including a whopping 100,000

words of information.

The report clarifies that we don’t necessarily parse a full 100,000 words per day, but that rather

astounding figure does cross our eyes and ears each 24-hour interval via multiple channels: the

Web, TV, text messaging, radio, video games and more.

The big winner is still television at almost 45 percent of our daily allowance, but the computer is

a not-too-distant second at about 27 percent.

In all, we spend about 11.8 hours per day absorbing mass quantities of information,

sometimes multitasking in front of multiple screens simultaneously.

Hourly Information Consumption

Page 28: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

28

Contd. Section 5 – Information Consumption

Consumption of Words

Information Consumption in Compressed Bytes

Source Date: December 09, 2009

Source: http://mashable.com/2009/12/09/american-data-diet/

http://hmi.ucsd.edu/pdf/HMI_2009_ConsumerReport_Dec9_2009.pdf

Page 29: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

29

Contd. Section 5– Information Consumption

5.2 Metadata

Article 1 - The Metadata Problem

Key Facts In 2008, non-textual media storage requirements (audio, music, images, and

video) were an estimated 16 exabytes. (An exabyte is a billion Gbytes.)

Subscription-based and download media sales totaled $3.3 billion in 2008

British independent TV network broadcaster ITN adds more than 20 hours of

broadcast-quality video to its archives every day, and it’s just one of hundreds of

global broadcasters doing so.

Web 2.0 users add 20 hours of video to YouTube’s archives every minute.

Currently, none of this media is easily searchable.

Video in particular is hard to search because most of the material is not indexed

in a searchable way.

Source Date January 21, 2010

Source http://www.edn.com/blog/980000298/post/1780052178.html

Page 30: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

30

Contd. Section 5– Information Consumption

5.3 Data Superabundance

Article 1 - Enterprise Data Growth

Key Facts Enterprise Data Growth in the next 5 years is estimated to be 650%

80% of this data will be unstructured data

40 exabytes* of unstructured new information will be generated worldwide in

2009

The estimated average storage capacity growth in Australia in 2009 is

60%… in 2010 they estimate it will be 62%

Source Date November 16, 2009

Source http://blog.une.edu.au/robbi/2009/11/16/enterprise-data-growth/

Article 2 - Attacking the Growth Barrier of Data Storage

Key Facts IDC estimated the amount of data stored worldwide in 2007 was nearly

300 exabytes, and that this number will grow ten-fold by 2011.

The data storage, archive, and backup of large volumes of digital content is

quickly creating demands for multi-petabyte storage systems (equal to

thousands of terabytes or millions of gigabytes), but today’s storage industry

-- and its technological approach -- is not set up to effectively meet this

demand.

The beauty of dispersal is that as storage increases, the cost per unit of storage

does not. Dispersal also meets the same reliability target.

The table below best illustrates a generic example of cost savings between

dispersal and replication when fixing the cost at a representative, but not

necessarily actual, ―raw” storage cost of $2.75 per GB.

Source Date September 10, 2009

Source http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=99:cov

er-story&id=7726:attacking-the-growth-barrier-of-data-storage&Itemid=2701018

Page 31: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

31

Contd. Section 5– Information Consumption

Article 3 - Growth of Stored Data

Key Facts The amount of data stored within corporate servers, workstations and

user's machines continues to grow.

The dramatic growth of stored data is fueled by three trends:

Increasing capacity of storage media,

Decreasing costs per MB,

Emerging role of information technology within firms.

Source Date N/A

Source http://www.deepspar.com/wp-data-loss.html

Page 32: Information Overload Phenomena

Information Overload Reported on: 25-03-2010 athandz

32

Feedback

Any feedback on the answer provided would be greatly appreciated by the researcher and athandz

team.

Want to know more details about our RESEARCH

SERVICES?

Please contact [email protected]