Dear Ting Fa et all, 

Too much infomation happens in modern life, through new technologies . It could hurt our personal lifes because we become having virtual friends (ex e-mails, groups of friends in internet, ...), and we do not really know what are  their emotions Too much information could create  anxiety and the fatigue syndrome,  could lower our concentration and could reduce our creativity (=we receive lots of fragmented infomation).

Have a nice time

Helena

Yes, indeed!

dear Ting Fa.

This is interesting...

Communication can be addictive...

It may depend of the interlocutors, particularly in public discussions. With some RG members is always a pleasure and is never too much.

To begin I reiterate what I said in another thread on cell phone addiction: the current 'information explosion' resembles an 'all-you-can-eat restaurant' and may also have unhealthy effects for the individual. I think the key is to adopt a 'healthy diet' of information and communication. This means we should be selective in the quantity and quality of information that we acquire and the kind of communication in which we participate, as well as in the time devoted to them in relation to other activities . 

There are various issues here. Right now I would like to focus in two (in other posts I shall come back).

First, implicitly, the invitation from Tin Fa assumes a that communication is about the media. That is right. In fact, that is the current assumption even among scholars in communication science. In terms of theory, there is no theory of communication to-date. Probably the best theory about communication is from the 1960s, namely M. McLuhan. Far behind, indeed. And not exactly very much updated, is it?

Secondly, very much as music is not made up of sounds - but also and most probably mainly from silence, so too communication is not just based on words, images, and the likes. But on silence and absence. Let's take a brief look at this... 

Dear  @José and RG Fellows,

Balance is always difficult of the one side there is glamour and in the other side there is personal curiosity. Both induce to a labyrinthine explorationof the knowledge.

When you enter a friendship it is hard not to answer according to the need of speech of these new correspondents. The web network may become a prison if you are emotionally involved.

If there is a development of the communication you are between two fires: to maintain an expensive but high level of information, or to reduce it. Faced with these alternatives, someone decides in a draconian way distancing himself or stopping any communication with the consequent dispersion of  the relational and informational patrimony created.

Best regards

Ting Fa Marg

"...initially may seem funny, but it soon becomes a source of stress and dissatisfaction". Yes, exactly! It could seem interesting and appealing in the beginning, but if something is continuously repeated, the matter starts to become an exaggerated and bothering  (no matter what the issue might be...).

Well, additionally, communication has become a part of strategy. This is why they speak about strategic communication - and a number of centres are devoted to it. This goes hand in hand with political marketing. The juncture of them both is a real bomb: a social, a political, a civilizatorial bomb! People are literally manipulated henceforth.

I like what you say, dear C. Lewis. Many, many people "out there" do not have the opportunity to communicate - their feelings, their biographies and stories, their hopes and fears. A good theory of communication should be able also to cope with that - and just with an urban-middle-class approach.

Dear Marg, I think that silence and speech / communication are beautiful in the right season and the right balance, somewhat like yin yang.  So excess of communication throws out this beautiful balance, and isn't good.  But our minds are wired to SELECT, FILTER the important and essential things that we must know.  I will send you the link soon.  

"Newly discovered neurons in the front of the brain act as the bouncers at the doors of the senses, letting in only the most important of the trillions of signals our bodies receive..."The brain doesn't have enough capacity to process all the information that is coming into your senses," said study researcher Julio Martinez-Trujillo, of McGill University in Montreal. "We found that there are some cells, some neurons in the prefrontal cortex, which have the ability to suppress the information that you aren't interested in. They are like filters."

http://www.livescience.com/13690-brain-clutter-filtering-brain-cells-110413.html

Dear Ting Fa et all, 

Too much infomation happens in modern life, through new technologies . It could hurt our personal lifes because we become having virtual friends (ex e-mails, groups of friends in internet, ...), and we do not really know what are  their emotions Too much information could create  anxiety and the fatigue syndrome,  could lower our concentration and could reduce our creativity (=we receive lots of fragmented infomation).

Have a nice time

Helena

Dear Helena, when we detect this anxiety and fatigue, let's make the right decision to slow down our planned activities, at least for a while.  Even our research and research writing can wait, because health is far more important.  Let's keep in touch on Q and A, as time permits, ok?  (I pray for my friends in Europe who feel the immigration stress.  I wish that all parties will act sensibly to protect citizens and refugees.  There will be some countries that are more able to welcome them, and some less able.)

Showcasing Knowledge, available at http://www.adb.org/publications/showcasing-knowledge, makes the point that information has become ubiquitous because producing, manipulating, and disseminating it is now cheap and easy. But perceptions of information overload have less to do with quantity than with the qualities by which knowledge is presented. A related presentation titled Information Overload in the Attention Economy, available at http://www.slideshare.net/celcius233/information-overload-in-the-attention-economy, draws attention to the work of Herbert Simon and Thomas Davenport et al. in this respect.

I have long thought, since I was a young child, that 'the quality of communications would decrease in proportion to the frequency and quantity of communications'.  For example, a message sent on horseback or stagecoach, might not reach its destination for weeks.  In those times, it took great deliberation and thoughtfulness as what to write.  Whereas, nowadays, we can send whatever message within an instant.  The quality of writing, as well as substance has decreased dramatically in relation to the increased speed of communication.  The excess of communication is deleterious to the quality of language and communication.

 Excessive communication leads to information overload, eg when staff find hundreds of messages arriving in their intray each day. It increases stress, indecisiveness, ineffectiveness, etc. 

Excessive talking can be dangerous to your business and your life.  Tongue-wagging may not send you to the ER with heart-palpitations, blot clots, or cancerous tumors, but it can kill many good ideas before they’re executed.

Insufficient communication leaves staff 'in the dark' and is demotivating.

A balance needs to be struck in communication between management and staff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/business/people/communicationrev3.shtml

http://www.booherresearch.com/communication-excessive-talking-can-killer/

Centralized communication goes through one person (usually the person in charge), it does not require a lot of communication among workers to be resolved or accomplished depends on the nature of the task), but also because it is usually the leader, not the employees, who prefers a centralized network - leading to excessive and authoritative styles

Dear all,

Good day,

"everal previous communications Inside Risks columns have pursued the needs for more long-term planning—particularly to augment or indeed counter some of the short-term optimization that ignores the importance of developing and operating meaningfully trustworthy systems that are accompanied by proactive preventive maintenance. This column revisits that theme and takes a view of some specific risks. It suggests that advanced planning for certain major disasters relating to security, cryptography, safety, reliability, and other critical system requirements is well worth consideration. The essential roles of preventive maintenance are also essential."

http://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/2/182644-far-sighted-thinking-about-deleterious-computer-related-events/abstract

Regards

Balance is using communication and in general technology is the key!.

Insufficient communication leaves us in the dark and is demotivating.

Excessive communication leads to information overload Advances in technology has reduced the amount of time it takes to do any one task but also leads to the expansion of tasks that people do.

Unfortunately, excessive communication has also reduced the amount of quality we spend with family and friends.

Dear Ting,

Dear All,

The communicational “normal” dose, an average man can get, is too high. There is too much information to be process and a considerable amount of this information is deformed, fake information. Political as well as economic aim is to manipulate people according to the interests of decision makers and business circles. This is the simplest, most efficient and – certainly – the cheapest way to maintain regimes and mainstream economic and social environment. This is a reality. However, one has the option to switch off the media. Unfortunately, majority of people are not able to select among information and news and the extremely developed even horrible net of manipulation determine strictly even our personnel environment and continually reproduce the scenery of this corrupt world.

In many cases the means of information act as invasors of private home and life if the person/family is not protected and take his/her/their precautions.

All actions, including communication, involve costs and benefits. The key therefore is to identify these costs and benefits which may differ between individuals, cultures, populations, communities,..... ?

And things become more complicated when these costs and benefits change from one day to the next? 

Dear @Marg, I have had such experience under different threads. The "quality" of the information that were brought to discussion initiates different responses. Also, we have the case when discussion goes far away with many responses, thanking to posts that have no relation to the question. It becomes a practice to post answers fast, to be the first, while answer has no sense! 

Participants in discussion may leave the discussion or social network completely if they feel that communication is deleterious, very often harmful... !

The officials of RG, FB, ..., as well as other social network, should take care about the validity of information, validity of source just to prevent bad outcomes of such communication which may bring  stress and dissatisfaction. We should also take care about our answer to be a good , not to be offensive to our colleagues. 

Dear Ting,

You ask for two distinct issues:

As for the first, there is no doubt that overdose of information leads to a de-awareness of our nerve system, with not so good results.

For the second issue, the hint is "follow the money", since all the above mentioned info-providers care for their profit increase.

The solution is strictly personal: each of us has to know his/her limits and not to break them.

Think the objective of communication is for the transmitter (person) to transmit desired data / information to the intended recipient so that the recipient can process / understand / take needed action & vice-versa.  Ideally, just enough data / information should be sufficient but in some cases we might under communicate whereby ideas are not clear, didn't get across or no action being taken.  On the contrary, sometimes we might over-communicate that generate too much data that might agitate the recipient or need much processing (to certain extent we might need tools / analytics to gain the insight.  The burden of communication increases when many people need to communicate with many people at the same time.  Hence, we need to prioritize our communications based on importance & urgency.  Also in each communication, we need to use the simple & easily understood language e.g. no jargon and contain the right amount of data or information (what, why, who, when, where, how, how much can be good guidance).

Dear friends, let me please advance the follwoing conjecture:

Within a few decades from now, every single person on earth will be digital native. Not digital immigrant any more. Then the world will change wonderfully. Literally: a 70 years old person will have the knowledge about the web, gadgets, interplays and the like that a young boy or girl 10 years old has now. Can you imagine the younger ones in that moment?

Dear Ting Fa, generally 'Excess' of anything (even good) is bad only and balance approach is always suggestible.

Why we over communicate:

Over communication typically occurs in work environments, but it does happen in our personal lives as well. Here are some reasons why we might over communicate:

• The person you’re communicating to has criticized you in the past for not communicating enough, lack of communication, etc… This is typical with bosses and spouses.
• You’re nervous or fear leaving out a key detail.
• You find something related to the information you’re providing that you feel is worth mentioning.
• You’re trying to sound intelligent or informed.
• You’re trying to show off your knowledge or expertise.
• You don’t fully understand the level of detail the other person is interested in.
• You’re trying to set the other person’s expectations a certain way before you provide them with the information (a.k.a. beating around the bush).
• Your mind is wandering and your mouth is following along.

Whatever the reason, you feel the need to say more than you really need to. You can get away it sometimes, but if you continue to do it, you can frustrate those you talk to.

What to do about over communicating:

Awareness is the biggest thing. Even catching yourself while or immediately after you over communicate is a huge step in the right direction. From there, think about your responses before you say them. Try to be precise and concise without sounding standoffish. Don’t take it too far and under communicate (think teenagers answering “nothing” to every question asked by their parents) but pay attention to how you communicate and only include relevant information.

Here are some simple tips to help cure over communication:

• Practice giving answers that are precise and to the point.
• Be descriptive only if it’s relevant to the other person’s wants or interests.
• Try stating the facts only. Avoid editorializing or sugar coating an answer.
• If the question requires a one word answer then answer with one word. If the person needs more information, then they’ll ask for it. If you feel uncomfortable doing this, try giving the one word answer and then ask the other person if he or she would like to know more.

http://blog.jvf.com/2008/05/10/communication-success-the-cure-for-over-communicating/

We live in a wonderful age of information & communication but the information out there often is not exactly what is needed. As for communication ,it may reach the saturation point and even go beyond it until the communicator becomes bored & gives up to adopt eventually the attitude of ( less is more). I think that none of us likes, e.g. excessive spam e-mails & we usually delete them considering them a waste of time for us to read.

You & me are attracted to only what matters & to what is enjoyable. At the end of the day, it all comes down to value. If there is true value, then there will be more enthusiasm towards communication & gathering information. However, finding value in today's crowded communication channels is not easy. To become selective, experience in the internet  is needed . When an old scholar , who had 20 years' experience in the internet, told his students( today) that they are wasting too much precious time in FB, the addicted students did not believe him! They need some time to grasp this advice.

The real problem is not the 'information overload but our inability to filter (Clay Shirky)

I rather think that the real problem is the fact that we are not bombarded with information, but by demands in the sense that we are pressed by stimuli to meet, interact, exchange and offer all sorts of data. If that's the case, blame the communicator 'bulimic' is not very different from blaming the 'inhabitant of the metropolis as he breathes too smog.

Dear Ting,

Yes, excessive communication may lead to addiction which is deleterious.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/communication-addiction-disorder-concern-over-media-behavior-and-effects/3/

http://hps.org/hpspublications/articles/rfradiation.html

See ...

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

Peter Drucker

Talkaholic -  talk all the time, there is no upper limit established, some people can

• talk all their waking hours,
• stay up talking long past their normal sleep intervals, or even 
• even talk in their sleep

http://www.fenichel.com/walther.pdf

Yes, there is information overload and we must use moderate and proper use of communication.

Difference between information and communication according to journalist Sydney Harris:

The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.

Stop the Insanity: How To Crush Communication Overload

Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swiss Miss recently declared that she had reached a personal communication crisis:

“Too many channels. Too many messages. Too much noise. Too much guilt… The world sends me tweets, direct messages, texts, chats with me on skype, sends me Facebook emails (!) and actual mail and also calls me… Responding on all these channels is a full time job, extremely distracting and exhausting. I feel constantly behind.”

http://99u.com/articles/7002/stop-the-insanity-how-to-crush-communication-overload

I like the suggestions in the article you posted, Subhash.

4 Steps to Triumphing over Communication Overload!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/08/17/communication-overload_n_7967384.html

Communication overload is more common of an issue than many of us would ever believe. There are several types and levels of communication today based on the technology that we are surrounded with.

These communications arrive to us through email, pagers, instant messages, cell phones, voice mail, teleconferencing, video conferencing, and several other means. While these methods of communication are quite productive in many different ways, and can assist us with numerous areas of our life, there comes a time when too much is, well, simply too much. This is when communication overload may start to occur. Here, you will be introduced to this type of overload, as well as how to cope with communication overload.

What is Communication Overload?

Communication overload is exactly what it says... an overload in communications. However, this actually goes a bit deeper than the surface definition. Communications that an individual experiences may be too complex and/or extensive. In addition to this, this type of overload may be experienced if someone receives too many types of communications from too many different sources. I

Simple ways to avoid the overload

1.If you have a device that captures messages, you should take the time to designate specific times throughout the day to check these messages.

2.It is important, when communicating on the phone, that you designate that time for that mode of conversation only. Do not check to see who is beeping you, or that email that just popped in. Doing so may overwhelm you.

3.When working online, work online but do the task at hand. Try to avoid working, chatting, talking, and several other types of activities that require communicating with others.

I

http://www.streetdirectory.com/etoday/how-to-cope-with-communication-overload-wafjpa.html

An information overload study: using design methods for understanding

Information overload is not a clear-cut concept. To understand the concept we studied knowledge workers in their organizational context applying different design methods. These methods are increasingly used to inspire designers in designing technology solutions. However, for understanding ambiguous concepts they are less common. We compared critical incidents collection, cultural probing and storytelling with respect to their contribution to articulate the concept of information overload and to understand why respondents perceive information overload as problematic. At the same time, these insights will steer us towards practical guidelines and technological solutions bridging the gap between understanding human behaviour and (technological) support.

Mulder, I., de Poot, H., Verwij, C., Janssen, R., & Bijlsma, M. (2006, November). An information overload study: using design methods for understanding. In Proceedings of the 18th Australia conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Design: Activities, Artefacts and Environments (pp. 245-252). ACM.

Conference Paper An information overload study: Using design methods for understanding

Excessive communication leads to information overload that causes forgetfulness.

What is the relationship  between 'information errors' and the size of (scientific) data bases, and what factors might cause this relationship? 

Communication overload leads to disregarding

involves ignoring what cannot be easily absorbed, which is a dysfunctional response, since information is rejected on an irrational basis. The info is typically ignored/ too difficult to comprehend or least pleasant.

Dear Marcel,

Evidently, increase of data quantity increases parallel the information errors. That is why information and data processing and evaluation is so crucial.

One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with.

--- Marshall McLuhan

Understanding Information Overload

Information Overload is an increasing problem both in the workplace, and in life in general. Those that learn to deal with it effectively will have a major advantage in the next few years.

Information Overload is when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to process to make sensible decisions. The result is either that you either delay making decisions, or that you make the wrong decisions.

It is now commonplace to be getting too many e-mails, reports and incoming messages to deal with them effectively.

The Information Overload Age

The first recorded use of the phrase “information overload” was used by the futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970, when he predicted that the rapidly increasing amounts of information being produced would eventually cause people problems.

Although people talk about “living in the information age,” written information has been used for thousands of years. The invention of the Printing Press a few hundred years ago made it possible to distribute written information to large amounts of people. However, it is only with the advent of modern computersthat the ability to create, duplicate and access vast amounts of information has created Information Overload amongst the general population.

The root of the problem is that, although computer processing and memory is increasing all the time, the humans that must use the information are not getting any faster. Effectively, the human mind acts as a bottleneck in the process.

Whether the information is useful or deleterious, it depends how we choose the sources and media of information and how we filter and manage the various information.

 The constant dilemma of the information age is that our ability to gather a sea of data greatly exceeds the tools and techniques available to sort,extract, and apply the information we've collected.   -Jeff Davidson

Internet is an information producing-tool that results from the activity of millions of brains to be handled by a single brain (e.g. the perceiver) behind the computer. How to make the right/adequate/useful/etc.... selection of information given that you only can handle < than 0.000000.......1 of the available information? If the biology-based mechanism of selection is based on a feeling of higher or lower levels of satisfaction, how does the perceiver of these feelings know that (s)he made the right/adequate/useful/etc.... selection of information? Learning trajectories guided by past experiences?

"Available information wisely used is far more valuable than multiplied information allowed to lie fallow." - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Time-Proven Strategies for Dealing With Information Overload  

A prominent researcher writes "information overload is a problem of the times." What’s causing that overload?

"At present in the world there are about 55,000 scientific journals publishing about 1,200,000 articles a year. Also about 60,000 books and 100,000 other research reports are issued annually . The sheer physical bulk of scientific and technical publications appearing in the United States has doubled approximately every 20 years since 1800."

The researcher then counsels that "since people can’t blow a fuse…they must adjust."

A recent blog post? A new best seller? Hardly. These statements were written in 1962 by James G. Miller, the director of the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan, in a study entitled, "Information Input Overload."

Even in that age pre-dating personal computers, the Internet, and iPads, people were overloaded by information. The advent of digital information and communication technologies has just made the problem far more acute. Berkeley economists Hal Varian and Peter Lyman estimated in 2003, that it would take about 30 feet of books to contain the amount of information generated for each person on the planet in a single year.

More recently, researchers W. Russell Neuman, Yong Jin Park, and Elliot Panek estimated that the amount of information available to a typical American household has increased by an order of magnitude between 1960 and 2005.

The researchers looked at the amount of information outlets available to a typical household over time, such as TV, radio, print media, telephone, and more recently the Internet. They then calculated how much time people had to consume these media. The study found that in 1960, the number of ‘media minutes available’ divided by ‘number of minutes of actual consumption’ was 82. By 2005, that number grew to 884. The study, entitled, "Tracking the Flow of Information into the Home: 1960-2005" concludes, rather dryly, that the challenge of dealing with all this new level of information overload is "in our view… not a human-scale cognitive challenge." It’s a challenge we can’t ignore, since information has become such a central part of our personal and professional lives. And because overload leads to performance degradation, stress, and depression, it is imperative we find effective ways to cope.

What can we do to deal with the information tide? Miller in his 1962 study provides some extremely effective strategies for dealing with overload; strategies that in some cases work just as well today as they did in the 1960s. Here are Miller’s seven strategies for dealing with information overload, updated for the times:

1. Omission – The concept is simple: you can’t consume everything, so just ignore some. This is a bit dangerous since some of the omitted information might be the most critical. Imagine that the email you ignored was the one where your most important client alerts you to a new opportunity.

2. Error – Respond to information without giving due consideration. While a seemingly poor strategy, this is more common than you might think; I mean, who hasn’t reacted to an email, report, or telephone call without thinking through all the consequences because of time constraints or lack of attention?

3. Queuing – Putting information aside until there is time catch up later. An example is processing email early in the morning, before the business day begins, or reading important reports late at night.

4. Filtering – This is similar to omission except filtering employs a priority scheme for processing some information while ignoring others. Automated tools are particularly well suited to help filter information. Recommendation engines, search tools, email Inbox rule engines and Tivo are all good examples of tools that can help filter and prioritize information.

5. Employing multiple/parallel channels – Doling out information processing tasks; for example, assigning the tracking of Twitter feeds to one person and blog coverage to another person on your team.

6. Approximation – Processing information with limited precision. Skimming is an example of approximation. Like omission and error, you can process more information by approximating, but you run the risk of making critical mistakes

7. Escaping from the task – Making this someone else’s problem. While it sounds irresponsible, admitting you can’t ‘do it all’ and giving an assignment to someone else is sometimes the best strategy of all.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3002467/7-time-proven-strategies-dealing-information-overload

"The benefits of lightening the burden of information overload—in productivity, creativity, morale, and business results—will more than justify the effort. And the more we appreciate the benefits, the easier it will be to make new habits stick."

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/recovering_from_information_overload

Of course! Dear Ljubomir Jacić.

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

--- Xun Zi

Screening information that appears to be irrelevant, and also adaptive or dysfunctional, depending on what to screen is called Filtering.

People tend to filter information that they do not readily understand or does not make them look good

People are blind with social media and internet! They accumulate information without use.

When information overload occurs, pattern recognition is how to determine truth.

Marshall McLuhan

Rapid spread of scientific information due to larger number of online journals and conferences often leaves scientists with information overload. Much harder to read all and pick the good articles on a research topic than two decades ago when I did My M. Eng..

“...a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention...”

― Herbert A. Simon

Modern Information Overload Stressing Out the Human Brain

"..a third of the people surveyed believe that they are being overwhelmed by "data overload" and are stressed out due to their inability to process the information..."

http://www.newseveryday.com/articles/27242/20151001/much-information-stressing-human-brain.htm

Yes, Dear Ljubomir Jacić,

People are communicating and interacting through multiple social media in addition to internet. The retention of so much information is very difficult, rather confuse us, overload us, and make indecisive us.

How to reduce information overload

We live in a world full of information being thrown at us, every moment of the day, constantly demanding our attention. In our everyday lives, we are being constantly hit with streams of incoming information. I recall days where I just felt so ‘full’ from information that my mind feels numb, and I’m sure you can relate.

Information overload occurs when we try to receive more information than can be processed. The noise this effort creates in our minds and our lives can be overwhelming. Here are the reasons that I decided to consciously reduce my information appetite:

• Productivity Loss – In the face of too much information, we can easily get lost in the details. We waste time focusing on unimportant information and lose sight of our goal and purpose. The extra data distracts away from our major tasks for the day. How often have you turned on your computer to check email, and ended up surfing the net for hours?
• Mind Clutter – The noise created by media, and other sources of information, clutters our mind and takes away from our inner peace.
• Lack of Time – Rich or poor, young or old, we all have the same limited amount of time in a day. And instead of spending a good chunk of my day filtering through incoming information, I’d rather spend the energy on bringing more enjoyment and fulfillment into my life. I want less time catching information and more time to live life.
• Lack of Personal Reflection – I found that if I am constantly consuming information, then I forget to connect with myself. I have found that valuable personal reflection comes when we create a ‘space’ for it in our lives. An example is the person who constantly has the radio on. If there is always noise, then we won’t have the mental capacity to reflect within.
• Stress & Anxiety – Information inflow creates the illusion that we have more tasks to fill our lives, than we have time for. Often, we might suddenly feel nervous without understanding why. Every piece of information carries with it energy, which demands our time. Even if we consciously ignore it, part of us saw that data and recorded it within our subconscious. So, we feel that we have lots and lots to do. This can create stress.

http://thinksimplenow.com/productivity/how-to-reduce-information-overload/

Copinng with information overload in email communication: Evaluation of a training intervention

The present paper introduces three facets of information overload in email communication: A large amount of incoming information, inefficient workflow, and deficient communication quality. In order to cope with these facets of information overload, a training intervention was developed and evaluated. Data were collected from 90 employees on several evaluation levels within a longitudinal evaluation design (one pretest double posttest design). The results reveal that the training contributed to an increase in knowledge and media competencies. We also found evidence for a transfer of training contents to the workplace.

Finally, strain diminished on several dimensions. In particular, problems with media usage and work impairment decline significantly, an effect that was stronger for those participants who face a large amount of email at their workplaces.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563210001184

To avoid the information overload, one must be perfect to filter out the unwanted/irrelevant information.

In the Information Age, the first step to sanity is FILTERING. Filter the information: extract for knowledge.

Filter first for substance.

Filter second for significance. These filters protect against advertising.

Filter third for reliability. This filter protects against politicians.

Filter fourth for completeness. This filter protects against the media.” 

― Marc Stiegler, David's Sling

Chang Jiaoshou, dear Tingfa,

a very good and relevant question!  With many good answers like from  Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan. There are brain-research results showing, that children who learn to focus and control are more successfull in later life. And this is necessary in the case of your question as well.

Just found the Quote from Marc Stiegler:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3064877-david-s-sling#other_Reviews

..........besides, it is good to develop and trust some inner Feeling about your own filter abilities or better finding abilities what you Need in this particular moment, which of course go beyond the 5 senses... 

"People fatigue" or being inundated with contact with people and the demands they make is a major contributor, as is information overload. People are constantly processing information in our job tasks, but nowadays with electronic media, we are bombarded by an overload of electronic information and unfortunately that often doesn't stop in the afternoons. People carry that home with their smartphones, with their iPads ... We have extended our work day way beyond a typical 8 to 5 through the fact that we sometimes remain on-call, like a medical doctor 24 hours of the day and even over weekends."

One of the possible solutions is to create clear boundaries between work and home - switch off your phone and avoid checking work emails at home.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11545742

Social media communication (technology) changed the style and type of interpersonal communication leading to Social connections being enlarged and relationships were not equally strengthened as much as in "face-to-face".

I remember going to an international conference in Southkorea in the 90ies and felt like in a different world: All the people have been wearing small electronical devices which was always humming and tell them which telefonnumber they should call.

I was thinking our society is constructed different, we are more independent, so hopefully this will not come to Germany.

Indeed it did not, it got worse: the mobile came making loose the independency for both sides and much more complete.

The excess of communication is/is not deleterious depends on the person, subject, situation, time, etc. factor.

Mining for substance in the constant stream of chatter (virtual or otherwise), is really a challenge; and as many have implied in this forum, the noise may seem to serve as the substrate for the signal to propagate. I like what Wittgenstein said with regards to his philosophy, which I think is becoming more and more relevant in our times:

"The whole sense of the book [i.e. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)] might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."

 Some parents argue, ‘It’s OK because my kid is using the computer all day and chatting with friends online.  But they’re missing out on nonverbal communication, rich and deep conversational skills, real-time social skills, knowing how to respond. We’re wired to interact with people and our brain is wired to learn through social interactions.