Information-age distractions and information overload

Today's "Circuits" section of the New York Times features a Katie Hafner article on information-age distractions.  Hafner focuses on current research by computer scientists and psychologists on ways to cope with "the universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch, and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging."

"Humans specialize in distractions, especially when the taks at hand requires intellectual heavy lifting," says Hafner. Dr. John Ratey, a Harvard Medical School researcher, calls this phenomenon "pseudo-A.D.D." Researchers are at work on distraction-reducing strategies including improved scrolling technology, intelligent e-mail systems that can identify interruption-worthy messages, and the relationships between distractions and the state of "deep cognitive immersion" known as flow.

Until the more sophisticated research efforts pan out, some of Hafner's interviewees are using simple solutions like self-imposed e-mail-checking schedules. Not a bad strategy for starters -- but Metaforix is working on some much more comprehensive ideas. Our InfoYou project is designed to yield personalized "information tool kits" for dealing with information overload that reflect individual information needs, styles, and preferences.

We are currently testing and refining InfoYou to reflect the information handling preferences and experiences of as many people as possible. Please add your own experiences to the mix by completing our InfoYou survey, available online at www.surveymonkey.com/infoyou. 

Most people complete the questions within fifteen minutes or less and find the survey interesting and fun. As our thank-you gift for your participation, Metaforix offers people who complete the questionnaire a valuable free download, "Infomaven's Top 10 Tools for Taming Information Overload Online." In addition, we invite you to enter a drawing for a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com.

So, while waiting for the distraction-busters of the future, I hope you'll participate in our study. We plan to create a book and a workshops series based on the results, Your input will help make our InfoYou tool kits even more useful. Please take the survey and let me know what you think by psoting a comment below or e-mail me at infoyou at metaforix.com.