Blockchain Bachelor’s Thesis – Information Overload and Methods of its Elimination in the Modern Information Society: Going Through the Sources pt. 7

Source

Previously published

---

Introduction

Blockchainized Bachelor’s Thesis
Blockchainized Bachelor’s Thesis – Initial Brainstorm

Thesis

1. Preface

Sources

1.Battling Information Overload in the Information Age
2.1.The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management? pt.1
2.2.The knowledge-attention-gap: Do we underestimate the problem of information overload in knowledge management? pt. 2
3.Database Research faces the Information Explosion
4.The experience of mobile information overload: struggling between needs and constraints
5.Longer online reviews are not necessarily better
6.An ant-colony based approach for real-time implicit collaborative information seeking
7.A psychological framework to enable effective cognitive processing in the design of emergency management information systems

Case study: Interview

1. First draft

Article

---

Steiner, C. M., Nussbaumer, A., Neville, K., & Albert, D. (2017). A psychological framework to enable effective cognitive processing in the design of emergency management information systems. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 20(1), 39-54.

A psychological framework to enable effective cognitive processing in the design of emergency management information systems

---

„Self-regulated learning denotes an active, constructive process of learning that is directed by the learner (Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001; Zimmerman, 2000). Self-regulated learners take over control and responsibility over their learning, they direct and regulate their own cognitive and meta-cognitive processes within educational settings. Meta-cognition is the knowledge about one's own cognitive processes, strengths and limitations, characteristics of tasks, and learning strategies, which could influence cognitive performance (Flavell, 1979). Self-regulation does not play a central role in learning only, but is essential in everyday life, in general. Self-regulation relates to an area of psychological research, which incorporates work on diverse viewpoints, aspects and applications of self-regulation constructs, including self-regulated learning, self-control, volition, and self-management (Boekaerts, Pintrich, & Zeidner, 2000).“

Being “consciously aware” of the information absorption, its processing and categorizing plays according to me fundamental role in the reduction of the information overload. I believe that free will (to an extent) exists, therefore our actions are not completely predetermined. If that is correct (for the need of the work we have to assume it is, because there is no proof whatsoever for such a statement) then meta-cognition can be acquired. It’s pretty hard and question still stands whether all human beings are in theory capable of acquiring it, but it is the only way how one can start coping with the consequences of the information overload. “Self-regulation” is then the actual process of rationalization of one’s inner and outer actions. One of them could (and should:D) be dealing with information overload.

---

„The core process of our psychological framework is therefore a three-stage model (See Figure 3) of self-regulated decision making in emergency situations:

• Forethought (Pre-decision): This phase refers to identifying the problem, i.e. an undesirable situation or condition (like a disaster) that exists or will exist in the future, and assessing this problem through gathering and judging information about the emergency situation.
• Decision: This phase involves exploring, developing, and evaluating alternative solutions to the problem identified, selecting an option on the basis of their evaluation, existing contingencies, and under consideration of outside factors (e.g. political, safety, financial, environmental, ethical), and implementing this solution.
• Reflection (Post-decision): The reflection phase consists of evaluating the solution, i.e. determining the results of the implemented decision and identifying whether the problem has been resolved or additional action is needed, whether the situation has changed, more resources are needed etc. This reflective/evaluative phase is essential, since it provides input and information for subsequent decision making (Kersten & Szpakowicz, 1994).

The article tackles decision making in emergency situations, but I think that the very same definition applies to “normal” decision making too. Decision making itself is a stressful and exhausting activity. Life threatening emergency situations add a little pinch to it I admit, but every decision making process can be perceived as an emergency…if there was no need for the decision to be made then where is the reason to spend ones energy to do the decision anyway?

---

“Humans operate in a perception-action cycle: senses take in information from their environment, the mind does computations on these environmental stimuli, and the results of these guide subsequent goal-directed actions. A key aspect therefore is that the biological organism and information processing capacity is limited and humans must select from all the environmental stimuli available in a situation to which to attend to (Goldstein, 2010).“

This is an important notion that I tackled in the thesis. It’s important to understand that information overload can occur even from the information that forms the objective reality itself (like environment, sound of the nature etc.). Truth be told, the human-communicated information usually causes the overload, but the brain can be pre-exhausted even from the "casual" information all around us. Wait for the thesis, I explained this thoroughly while defining information itself.

---

„Many decision makers exhibit a tendency of trying to collect more information than would actually be required for making a good decision; this necessarily means additional processing time. It may even lead to information overload, such that the entirety of available information cannot be managed and evaluated appropriately, leading to selective use of information and missing of pertinent information.“

This is the evergreen that I see almost in every article about information overload. Of course more information always comes with the risk of information overload. I though am seeking the consequences of information overload. It’s a well-known fact (at least for me after reading all the articles) that too much information causes information overload:D. This is though more of a problem of information literacy, where the individual has no clue that the information he already assembled is sufficient, or cannot use the information he has effectively.

---

„Information presentation factors may influence time efficiency, accuracy, or strategy selection during decision making. The modality and structure of presentation (e.g. images vs. text), for example, have been shown to influence time efficiency of decisions (e.g. Aminilari & Pakath, 2005). If information is structured meaningfully and in line with the decision task, this positively affects the perceived value of information and time efficiency.“

I have too seen those statements in various forms. Usually though I have seen it connected only to the processing of the information itself, not to the decision making. I’ll save the quote just in case I would feel the need to stress it is the chapter about decision making.

---

„High stress conditions lead to reduced information processing capacity (Hancock & Szlama, 2003)“

This may seem as a pretty obvious fact, but for me its super important to actually have some kind of “proof” for the statement. The fact that those guys have done a research about it, proved it and I later found about it is simply awesome!

Overall the last sources that I went through were concentrating on a very specific topic. Therefore it was much harder for me to extract relevant information. Since worsen decision making is one of the consequences of the information overload, it will have its place in the thesis and having some quotes about it is crucial for me.

---