SOCIAL MEDIA OVERLOAD

By K.C.Bishoppe

When Alvin Toffler wrote about "shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time" in Future Shock he never imagined the growth of and exposure to social media with which today's employees would be dealing.

Toffler wrote his book over 40 years ago and it dealt with information overload at the time. The Internet didn't exist so employees didn't need to deal with email overload. Telephone messages, at the time, were generally taken by a switchboard or secretary and delivered to the recipient, and they were generally fewer than voicemail archives.

The workplace today is very different from the workplace of 40 years ago. Everyone gets thousands of email messages daily, and the more accounts you have, the more mail you receive. Voicemail stacks up the unanswered phone calls and keeps them on tap in both the office, the home and on the mobile phone until the recipient listens and decides on a response.

In short, everyone seems to be on information overload without social media. Then social media became the hot new information source and now people are barely surviving.

Social media exposes people to four types of information that were previously not available. First you have profiles that summarize online identities. With profiles come connections linking the individuals with others and sometimes linking together different people in the individual's network. Everyone seems to be publishing content online and the content can be personal words, photos and/or videos that have special significance for the individual and which they want their connections to see and enjoy. Finally, profiles contain information on activities that the individual is doing and exposing those activities and sometimes other participants, for viewers to see.

The major problem appears to be that we're not filtering the information so there's just too much to review and absorb. Unfortunately, people feel overwhelmed and don't know what to respond to or what to react to, even if they have the time and most people simply don't have the time.

Without meaning to delay their work or leave things undone, people find they simply can't get all of their work done and still respond to all of the social media requests and information that comes their way.

Some developers are working on new filters that can help manage the deluge of information. But other people are focusing on the visual and auditory skills that already exist in the individual. Their idea is to use visuals to improve explanation of business concepts and then use the same techniques for better interpretation of the profiles, connections, content and activities provided by social media so that we have a better understanding of how customers and their networks interact.

For more on this topic read Dave Gray (xplane.com) and Dan Roam (thebackofthenapkin.com), just two of many who are moving business in this direction.