Information overload occurs when decision-makers face a level of information that is greater than their information processing capacity, i.e., an overly high information load (Schroder et al. 1967; Eppler and Mengis 2004), but the phenomenon is not confined to the modern world. As Blair (2012) noted in her review article, even in the thirteenth century, scholars complained of “the key ingredients of the feeling of overload which are still with us today: ‘the multitude of books, the shortness of time and the slipperiness of memory’” (Blair 2012, p. 1).
Two radical innovations supported the rapid increase in the availability of information and the decrease in information search-related costs: Gutenberg’s printing innovations and the rise of information technology (IT). Before these radical innovations, the issue of information overload was limited to a wealthy and privileged elite. In particular, the rise of IT and the use of internet services have resulted in an expansion of information overload-related problems for all social ranks.
In ancient and medieval times, the nobility and academics almost exclusively faced information overload-related problems, as Blair (2012) and Levitin (2014) suggested. d the use of internet services have resulted in an expansion of information overload-related problems for all social ranks. In...
Information overload occurs when decision-makers face a level of information greater than their ability to process. The phenomenon dates back to medieval times, but 2 innovations rapidly accelerated it: Gutenberg’s printing and the rise of information technology.