Earthling

I wonder if blackberry or other mobile email device use would also contribute to the sensation of information overload -- blackberry owners may not actually receive any more email messages than non-owners, but because they are constantly connected to their email, they may feel more barraged.

And what about asking about more "classic" media as contributors to overload?
Do you have cable or satellite tv? How many tv channels do you have? Do you have a DVR? Do you subscribe to a daily newspaper and do you read it? Do you subscribe to magazines? Do you listen to the radio?

I think what's going on here is that the ecology of media that we swim in every day has grown larger and more diverse, and the information that is both pushed to us and that we pull to ourselves is broader and more varied than ever before.

It'll be interesting to see if there's a "tipping point" for the sensation of media overload uncovered by your survey.

This deserves a longer response but you are so right. I have always wondered when people will start minding all this info.

Thanks for your insights, Amanda. I've incorporated those questions up top. Good question about Blackberry users -- I imagine the relative ease of getting to the information coming in plays a role in the subjective feeling of overload. That leads off into another interesting line of thinking -- does a stack of unread print publications feel as daunting as an e-mail inbox full of unread messages? It used to be that coming home from a vacation, a stack of unread land mail signified the unhappy return to reality, but for me, land mail stacks never scare me any more, unless they've already been read and sorted and are unpaid bills.

I'm partly interested in what the numbers would look like, but I also think creating an exercise for individuals to go through might help them by showing some places where they can go on an information diet, or just make everything more manageable without too much change in their habits. GTD style.

I'd like to find a web app that would make putting an un-scientifically rigorous survey together, publishing it, sharing and analyzing the results easier. I've used SurveyMonkey.com in the past, but I wonder if there's something out there that's more social in terms of presentation, analysis, and sharing of results.

Have you played around with Swivel.com at all? It seems to do the sharing part pretty well.

1. How many phones and answering systems do you have?

One, two if you count Skype, which is more of a toy for me right now.

2. Is one of them a Blackberry, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Treo, Sidekick or the like?

No.

3. How many e-mail accounts do you have?

Two that I ever use.

4. Do you read stuff via an RSS aggregator?

Yes.

5. Which web sites do you visit directly each day?

I'm now reading most of my regular sites via RSS. A couple of news and political sites don't have adequate feeds yet, though.

6. How many IM clients are you logged in to during the day?

None.

7. How much and what kind of mail do you receive via USPS mail?

Almost all junk mail. Maybe three or four pieces. Also Netflix.

8. Do you watch television daily?

Yes.

9. Do you use a DVR?

Yes.

10. Do you subscribe to a daily newspaper?

No longer.

11. How many individual magazine issues do you receive each month?

None.

12. Do you listen to the radio just about every day?

Yes, I leave it on all through the work day. It's mostly background noise but my ears perk up when I hear something I'm interested in. I'm sure I miss a lot, though.

13. Anything else? What are the usual sources of extra and overflow?

The only place I experience anything like overflow is in podcasts, which by definition take up a certain amount of time. It is certainly possible that I don't read news stories as closely as I used to. When big events are happening, I pick up the Times to get a more in-depth look at things.

I think I probably skim stories more than I used to (I think this is at least partly because of the amount of reading I do on a screen), but I also hear from several outlets about most things I'm interested in.

Jeff -- how would you rate your usual feeling of overloaded-ness? In listing it all out, any surprises?

Here are mine:

1. How many phones and answering systems do you have?

3.

Cell: I carry a Drift and get calls, voicemail, SMS, picture messages, and the occasional e-mail there. Since I'm signed up for Twitter, I get regular SMS updates from people on there.

Home: I use EarthLink TrueVoice at home, and though few people I want to talk to call my home number anymore, I do get the occasional voicemail there. TrueVoice gives me all of my voicemails via e-mail, and I check those at the Voice Portal.

Office: People call my desk phone sometimes at work, so I have to check that from time to time. It has a blinking red light, so I don't have to pick it up unless I see the red light.

2. Is one of them a Blackberry, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Treo, Sidekick or the like?

Not at the present time.

3. How many e-mail accounts do you have?
5+.

I have lots. More than I should. Lots of them came free with things I bought or signed up for, and I just haven't gotten around to forwarding them, grouping them, or nuking them.

Home: I use Apple Mail at home and have two accounts currently checked that way via POP. I also have an EarthLink consumer e-mail account that came with my TrueVoice service, and one I got when I signed up for MindSpring IM prior to that. I should really have those both forwarding to somewhere central.

I also have a Gmail account I use occasionally.

Office: I have a couple of work e-mail accounts, and they both come through Outlook on Windows XP via Parallels on my Mac.

4. Do you read stuff via an RSS aggregator?

Yes.

I use Reader. According to my manage sources page, I get content from 132 sources each day, though of those only 98 have had new content in the last month.

I also get Google Alerts via e-mail, so count that towards question #2.

5. Which web sites do you visit directly each day?

4+.

I look at Vox.com directly because I like to read the question of the day, and I like the way their home page shows me what's new in my neighborhood. I look at Flickr's home page for no good reason other than that it's an added thrill and looking at all my friends' new photos via RSS is too much. I've got a neighborhood message board I look in on via the web. And I look at Techmeme directly. It's too confusing via aggregator. Oh, and Twitter.com.

6. How many IM clients are you logged in to during the day?

2+.

I've got at least 2, via iChat, sometimes 3 or 4 when I throw in MSN. I should really use something like Meebo to keep those better organized.

7. How much and what kind of mail do you receive via USPS mail?

Say 2-3 pieces a day.

Nowadays, it's mostly bills and notices, a few magazines, credit card offers, ad circulars, and the very occasional piece of personal mail. I actually pay for a service that's supposed to receive and scan all of my paper bills ( www.paytrust.com ), but I've lapsed with it after moving a couple of times and now it only handles about 60% of my incoming bills.

8. Do you watch television daily?

No.

Really not so much anymore. I like TV, but it's not such a habit right now.

9. Do you use a DVR?

Yes.

I don't use it all that often though.

10. Do you subscribe to a daily newspaper?

No.

11. How many individual magazine issues do you receive each month?

6-8.

They generally don't get read until I'm on a plane or have some weekend time.

12. Do you listen to the radio just about every day?

Yes.

I listen in the morning, and have it turned on at night but don't actually listen to much of it.

13. Anything else? Where does overflow come from?

Meetings tend to create more information quickly, so they're almost a separate source. The number of sites I visit directly will wax and wane depending on new discoveries and things I might be researching at any given time.

Dave,

As for online survey tools, I've used a couple, Survey Monkey among them, but none recently, and I as I recall, the ones I've used are less open in their orientation, and tend to keep the data private for those who are analyzing and collecting it. I haven't used Swivel, either.

I recall hearing about a place to make interactive quizzes online (which could then be posted to a site or blog, I think??) but at the moment, I can't remember the name of the site (though I don't think its Swivel). Too much other info coming in, I guess...:)

How many of the data-collection mechanisms you use are intended to filter information? Do things like a DVR increase or decrease overall information consumption? Likewise RSS readers. When you don't have to scour the Web to keep up with events, and with the reduction (at least in MY life) of links passed around willy-nilly via email because everyone has their eye on the blogs, does that result in more or less information coming in through my eyeballs?

I have several email addresses, but the reason for the multiplicity is not increased but *decreased* information consumption. I sign up for crap with one email address, give my parents another, give my friends a third, post a fourth on my blog, and have a fifth for my job so I don't have to see job stuff when I'm off the clock.

Of your list, I think the one that gives me the most information-grief is actually the USPS. Letters come in with little to no information on them these days. Even those that I absolutely have to read are virtually indistinguishable from the Capital One credit card solicitations.

To go even further, the POTS line at my house is a worse offender than any of my email addresses, because I either have to ignore it when it rings, or sit there and listen to messages when I get home, and there are almost no easy ways to filter the information coming in-- I can't differentiate a call from my mother from a call from my mortgage company without standing there and listening to it. Products like EarthLink trueVoice mitigate this problem somewhat, but not completely-- if I'm there when the phone rings, Caller ID isn't the most information-rich doohickey ever invented. Plus, if it's a telemarketer the phone still rings. What options are there to keep the phone from ringing unless the caller ID is on my white list? I can specify that calls can't come in if they've disabled Caller ID, but that's about it as far as I know.

I can think of more examples, but suffice to say that I think there's a difference between technology that increases the information you have to take in every day (the Web), and technology that helps us manage the impact of the former (RSS newsreaders), with the side benefit that by managing the information you enable yourself to process more of it.

Interesting post.

JB