ReadWriteWeb has an interesting post this morning on the Information Overload problem:

Information overload is no longer a joke. For those who suffered with this affliction, it never was, but now that there are real numbers attached to the problem, it has finally prompted companies to take action. Those numbers come from a recent study by a research company called Basex and they are to the tune of $650 billion in wasted productivity. Ironically, the time wasted comes from use of applications and technologies that are supposed to make workers more productive. Unfortunately, they seem to have the opposite effect.

$650 billion is a LOT of lost productivity and clearly finding ways to help people deal with the issue would create some sweet savings.

This also creates a bit of a dilemma for those of us who advocate the use of social media. Many organizations will see “lost productivity” and will decide that the answer is to ban it. But the issue isn’t the tools, it’s how they’re being used. According to the Basex study:

. . . a typical information worker checks his or her email more than 50 times per day, uses IM 77 times, and visits 40+ web sites. These numbers were calculated by tracking software installed on the machines of the 40,000 people taking part in the study.

Often, workers are dropping high-level tasks to deal with mundane, low-priority tasks that come through via these unnecessary interruptions. The end result is fractured attention where the big loss comes from the time it takes to recover from the interruption and get back to work.

I’d hate to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater, but I also recognize that as humans we’re probably hard-wired to pay attention to the flashing messages that come across our screens. Clearly helping people develop the skills to deal with this is a key work literacy. The question is–how can we make this happen?