Word of the Day: Infomania

There have been a few articles over the last couple of days dealing with the issue of information overload and interruptions – this apparently now has a name: informania.

The dictionary definition doesn’t quite seem to line up with the definition given in this article. There definition is this:

“infomania” — the loss of concentration caused by the constant electronic interruptions that plague many office workers.

The other interesting article is this one created by Dan Russell over on Creating Passionate Users.

I resonate strongly with both of these articles. If I turn on everything that could be screaming for my attention it makes for quite a list:

• Mobile phone – calls
• Mobile phone – messages
• Office/House phone
• Instant Messaging – personal (Live Messenger)
• Instant Messaging – corporate (Sametime)
• Calendar (Notes)
• Tasks (Notes)
• Email – personal (Outlook)
• Email – corporate (Notes)
• VOIP (Skype)
• Blogs (Feedburner)

And that’s without including all of the external distractions, or any interruptions from biological interrupters (people).

It’s a wonder I ever get to do anything other than deal with the interrupts. But I’ve learnt a lesson, a switch some of them off. It’s amazing how liberating it is.

Dan’s recognition of the “setup time” between interruptions is spot-on. There are some days when I feel worn-out by all of the context switches.

I think we have a long way to go before we really understand how to attract peoples eye-attention to the correct thing at the correct time. We need to think a lot harder about the impact of the technology that we are making available and the way that it influences the user experience.