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Knock, Knock: Information Pollution Is Here
CowboyRobot writes ""Information Pollution" is one of the newer buzz-phrases, appearing in various media to describe unwanted phone calls, faxes, emails, etc.
Jakob Nielsen, known for his critiques of user interfaces has an article about the problems of unwanted instant messaging interruptions. Nielsen is respectable not only because of the clarity of his arguments but because he also cites empirical evidence, rather than just complaining.
In the article he describes the current problem, then proposes a 'control panel' as a centralized interface to manage all the communications one would make via the computer."
Nielsen is respectable not only because of the clarity of his arguments but because he also cites empirical evidence, rather than just complaining.
I hate to sound like I'm just bashing the guy, but he's a huge hypocrite. I started reading his site back in the day, and after signing up, I got spam for years afterwards.
"Information Pollution" my ass. Up until he decides something's bad and coins some clever term, he'll do it with no compunction.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
With all the spam on the Internet these days I find it harder and harder to find information on what I want. I was searching for information on teens in general for a project that my company was working on and majority of the results were adult related. When searching for products such as Cell Phones I'll be shown thousands of results for Antenna Boosters, Free unlocking Kits and more. Is anyone else having the same problems?
Even very effective spam filters today (SpamAssassin, et. al) still produce false positives sometimes. I don't want any and all electronic communication coming to me to be subject to some Internet Control Panel's idea of its usefulness to me - what happens when my boss sends me an email and it gets rejected by the control panel and I never see it? I do use SpamAssassin myself but still have to check the junk folders from time to time because it occasionally sticks stuff in there that I really did need or want to see.
'...then proposes a 'control panel' as a centralized interface to manage all the communications one would make via the computer."'
What are the options? Drop nuke on spammer's house? Send in the black helicopters? The problem isn't so much on the receiver's end as it on the sender's end. Instead of forcing users to jump through flaming hoop after flaming hoop why don't we develop systems that make it more difficult to send spam in the first place? Jakob Neilsen, of all people, should know better than to suggest such a wasteful UI to solve a much deeper problem with the system itself. If you want total anonymity on the internet than you have to deal with these problems. You can't say only certain peolpe get to be anonymous and the people I don't like can't. You want to be able to spoof headers? Be prepared for spammers to take advantage of this "feature". You want to have the ability to have open relays? Get ready for the flood of spam that will use them.
like a modern cellular phone? that's where it's heading anyways, an all-around communication device.
..doh, it is instant messaging) and you can use im services(irc,aim,whatever i guess) from most new phones(i know, the j2me irc sucks, virca that is.. but wirelessirc for series60 is pretty good, most phones also come with email clients as well). already I use more the online services made possible by cheap enough gprs than what I use my phone for actual talking(gprs is ways much cheaper than sms's in most cases and obviously you get the added benefit of contacting all your friends who are online at once when they're on the same channel).
. you know, sms is quite a bit like im(well,
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Or...how to categorize anything they say:
A- Conceited without reason
B- Self-interested to astronomic proportions
C- Frustratingly condescending and tunnel-visioned
D- Doesn't matter, it's all idiocy to me.
Get your votes in fast.
Initially, it made me less available and less responsive, and that bothered me. However, my work habits started to change in response to it. Because I now control my exposure to communications, I find that I can flip to the other box, scan for messages, and flip back to my work box without exiting the flow state.
This has had some other really positive side effects. For example, people are aware that I'm in my office, even if I'm not responding to IM. That means that if something's really important, they'll often just drop by, replacing the thirty back-and-forth email with a simple 5 minute conversation. Sure, I lose my flow state, but high priority problems bubble up to the top of the list and get resolved in the most effective way (ie; face to face) possible.
The idea for solving "Information Pollution" is interesting, but what of the quality of the information that is delivered? In this day and age when you can find web sites devoted to "Proof we never made it to the moon" and hard facts are often replaced with "that sounds about right" isn't the real pollution the content we supposedly want - and not the advertisers?
Find me a system to easily and quickly verify the "facts" with something I can trust.
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
1. Do you ever use your email like an instant messenger? Meaning, do you and another person sit there writing messages to each other in almost real-time? You sit there pathetically pressing refresh or check email, waiting for the next reply? I have.
2. A control panel for monitoring information flow is not a bad idea - just that it needs to be implemented to cover everything and be easy to use. You should be able to easily define rules (like spam rules) that says what to do with the messages if they meet certain criteria.
Of course, it defeats the purpose of IM - after all, if you don't want to be available, or just don't want to be interrupted, just turn the thing off!
3. I think that instead of finding a technical solution (yet another program that will cure all, bring world peace, and improve worker productivity - remember that's what they said about email? Instead of all of these, just sit down and take some time and figure out the best routine for yourself. Everybody has different work habits, and a control panel, no matter how flexible, is not going to accommodate everyone's requirements. If you don't want to be interrupted, then just turn those notifications off, change your IM status to "away" or "do not interrupt"
4. Some workers don't "want" to be productive. They want to be interrupted.
Nielsen is respectable not only because of the clarity of his arguments but because he also cites empirical evidence, rather than just complaining.
But he is just complaining!
From the article: "It is naive to believe that IM is the answer to the information overload that's ailing e-mail. Continue current trends a few years and most people will get so much IM that they will have to tune it out to get any work done."
This is the problem he's trying to address it would seem, and his solution is a nice pretty control panel that does everything for him. Now this is obviously a problem, as many many other people have pointed out, but what is Nielsen doing about it? Whining that someone else should write a program apparently. If he believes this control panel is the end-all-be-all solution he should write it and try to sell it, but I'm not buying it. Until some public key standard ala PGP is made idiot proof and seamless enough for the average suburban housewife to use, consumers and big media will keep complaining, imho.
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
This may be hard for some to fathom, but try this: turn it off. No really. I mean it. When I need to work, I minimize email, go "invisible" on IM, and let voicemail pick up the phone. My cell phone has caller ID so I can ID my wife and know to pick up the phone.
All of these technologies have a way of being turned off and queueing messages for you. Use it. When you're ready for a break or it's just that time again, process them in bulk and get them over with. When I was programming, I only processed email 2-3 times a day (morning, right before lunch, and towards the end of the day) and this worked very well. Having a gig in marketing land has changed my job requirements where I'm actually judged by how often I interact with the sales team and customers so I check mail more often -- but, when I need to get a document written up or read and comment on something else, I minimize it all and focus.
One last note about IM -- have strict rules about IM. I don't socialize over IM when I'm working. I tell friends that are on my buddy lists to not expect a response during typical working hours if they just want to chat. I won't respond. If you want to send a social comment, send it via email to my personal mailbox and I'll get to it when I've got time to socialize.
I think he makes a good point with the statement that a one minute interruption can cost 10 to 15 minutes of productivity. Maybe productivity is the wrong word here because it translates so easily into money these days. Concentration would be much better. I for myself need a room that can be locked, a telephone line that can be unplugged and a quiet and relaxed atmosphere to concentrate on the work I want to do or that I have to do.
Unfortunatly this seems to be impossible in "modern" offices, there's lots of noise (IM and E-Mail is "noise", too!), everybody thinks he just can walk in after knocking at the door without waiting for a "come in" and the phone rings permanently.
It's great that you can reach and can be reached at any time at any place today. But it would be even greater if you could not be reached some time and others would respect that. Everybody who tried to have a phone line "just for emergencies" knows how people abuse it over time...
Good grief, why? IM seems to me to combine the worst features of the telephone and e-mail. I've never understood its allure. E-mail is quite fast enough for non-interactive communication, and if you want interactive communication pick up the phone (or better yet get off your ass and walk over to me, if we're in the sam building, I hate intra-office telephoning) and we can be much more interactive when we don't have to type at each other. And many people have e-mail through work, but not IM accounts. (Sadly, spammers are not amoung them, as IM spam is apparently becoming common.) Plus, the IM space is fragmented.
So, can anyone convince me that I should sign up for an IM account?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Want to only read the articles that interest you? Use Bayesian filters!
Yes, use Magic Beans, er, Bayesian filters and everything will be wonderful! We don't understand what they are or how they work, but by god, we'll recommend them for any kind of content filtering! Don't like TV? Use Bayesian filters!
This brought to you by the Bayesian filter marketing board -- you wouldn't have seen this if you used Bayesian filters.
Just take a look at your tv screen.
Those annoying network logos that sit on the tv screen constantly, except during commercials are the worst form of info pollution.
Do the nets really think that we won't know what channel we're watching if we don't see a constant reminder of it?
I suppose they see it as 'branding', increasing their profile in the Consumer's psyche, but it's really overkill.
It's one reason I got rid of cable tv last year and rarely watch broadcast tv.
I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to start putting studio logos on DVD's as well.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
IM is no different. It's just that IM is by design an interruptive form of communication. This just makes it all the more important that you don't leave it on all day long like many people do. If you leave your IM client on and complain that people keep interrupting you, I have no sympathy. There are some companies these days that seem to think using IM for work is a good idea. If somebody in the office wants to get in touch with you, they should walk over to your cube, or call you on your office phone. If it's not important enough for that, then an email is a better idea.
Check your email once every few hours, no more. If you must more often, for work, at least try to reeducate people - don't reply to emails immediately, train them to use more direct forms of communication when they need an immediate reply. Only turn on your IM client in the evenings when you don't expect to do productive work, and are just surfing the web. Learn to turn off your cell phone, and make sure the people you work with understand the rules for contacting you outside of work hours - leave a message, you'll get back to them. Be in control of your life and your time, you don't need some magic technotool, just a little self-restraint and discipline.
A better definition from Nielson:
"Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message."
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
It reads like a golden opportunity for entreprenurial programmers.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
LSD was invented in Switzerland, and Unix was invented in New Jersey. However, the idiom "Y comes out of X" doesn't mean it was invented there, just that X is a major center of production. E.g.:
Berkeley was a noted production center of LSD and Unix (technically a Unix-like system, Unix is a trademark of whatever it's a trademark of these days, yaddayaddayadda).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Our inbox mirrors our daily life.(even the penis enlarger ads[enzyte]).
3000 commercial messages a day are rammed into the average persons head wether they like it or not.
Adbusters argues that our mental environment is becoming polluted. "information pollution" has been a focus of their "mental environmentalism" since '89.
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
"Information Pollution" is one of the newer buzz-phrases, appearing in various media ...
Hmmm. Funny thing is that I've always considered those buzz-phrases that are so often bandied about by 'various media' as Information Pollution in their own right. The by-products of processing good information down into a more-assimilabable (but less rich) format for consumption by the masses.
GMD
watch this
I think our biggest problem isn't the amount of SP*M (hehe it is a 4 letter word you know) we get, or the unrelenting advertising that we get bombarded with. I think 90% of our discontent arises from not being able to weed out the content that we do want.
I would give my left kidney if I could do a google search for an item and exclude all places that try to sell me the widget.
Google search: widget -sale
then I would gladly wade through the 5,000 sites that had INFORMATION on the widget.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
"Information Polution" isn't a new thing, we're just mainstreaming an old problem. I certainly don't want to put up with billboards, telemarketers, sidewalk evangelists or any of the advertising that comes up in my mailbox every day. I'm sure people used to complain at length about the illegitimacy of newspapers or magazines. (Okay, so they still do.)
Nowadays we don't have just a few dozen channels for information at any given time, but literally thousands, possibly more, arranged and biased exactly the way you want it. If Mr. Nielson can't handle the two he's most concerned about -- and he's more concerned about workflow than personal use -- there are existing options. Email not fast enough? Pick up the phone. IM causing worker inattention? Block it.
Small "Internet Control Panels" exist, in limited-information capacities. I have no idea how many "e-bay tracker" applications there are out there, but my guess of "a lot" would probably be an understatement. And the message-filtering abilities of many modern e-mail clients means you could easily sort everything into the locale you want. (I'm not talking spam-filtering, but scripts to filter mail from a general pool into folders.)
E-mail is hardly dead, or sick, or dying. It's abused, and like many things that are abused people will either abandon it or find a way to change it into usefulness. Both are proper social reactions. People use and adapt to the most useful channels of communication.
Mr. Nielson appears to be so far behind the issue that he probably thinks he's ahead.
This now concludes our broadcast day.
Look I get as much junk IM and email as any one else, but i filter and block religiously, it is the only way I can stay productive. When I really need to get things done I'm not afraid to turn those items off.
The best little gem from the article --
This whole article shines as an example of that "irrelevancy"...
Just remember if jacob had his way we would all still be using blue links!!!
Isn't Jakob Nielson mixed up with Macromedia?
What he's describing sounds a lot like their vision for Central
Coincidence?
The obnoxious part of this idea, to me, is that it seems to ignore the problem of creating a program, or control panel, that would be able to determine what is of interest to a particular person at a particular time and what is not. This problem is unlikely to be be solved by smart filters and summarizing programs anytime soon, because what is interesting to a person is very much dependent on that person's state of mind at the moment. What may be interesting and diverting news while you're sipping your morning coffee would be an annoying distraction when you are on a conference call, or trying to work out a difficult problem. Unless we had software that could model a particular person, as a whole and taking into account all inputs _and_ their mental state at the time of those inputs, such "personal agents" could be worse problems than the ones they would solve, removing perhaps critical information while letting extraneous irritating information through. It seems to me that this would be a nontrivial problem to solve, and the idea that it would be solved for something as seemingly trivial as information overload, when there are much easier non-technical ways to overcome that burden, (e.g. turn off your IM when you're busy, etc.) is a case of sloppy thinking, in my opinion.
Information Pollution" is one of the newer buzz-phrases, appearing in various media to describe unwanted phone calls, faxes, emails, etc.
That's not "information pollution," at best that's "communication pollution"."Information pollution" is a glut of information, so much so that it is difficult to locate, understand, and/or disseminate information that is correct and relevant.
An example of information pollution is an Ask Slashdot requesting comparisons of the Linux and *BSD VM subsystems answered by three calmly worded, widely informed, well paced posts being drowned by five hundred wrong-headed OS proselytization posts. I cruse at no lower than +4.
Your article about unwanted X is unwanted.
Spam filtering, popup killing, troll killfiling, instant message yanking...
we are overloaded by information about information overload.
Please go away.
Thank you.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
And I didn't even mention the worst new irritant: the accumulated ringings of everyone's personal cellphones, all of which are set up to ring with the most annoying and lengthy ringtone possible, at the highest possible volume.
is that he thinks there's some magical universal solution that will work for every person. It's not true.
I remember reading Clay Shirky's open letter to him and they were debating the same sort of thing over web standards compliance. Clay Shirky was taking the position that diversity and experimentation in user interface design ultimately creates a better system. I tend to agree with that.
Anyway, back to the topic. While I agree IM is not the best solution to everything, it works for me quite well.
I work from home as a programming consultant. I work with a few other people, and IM is the most common way we communicate. It's faster than email and telephone in general when you have quick questions, and is convenient when you have longer conversations throughout the day and want to leave the information up on the desktop.
Sure it's not perfect. One of it's best (and worst) features is the the ability to know when someone is online. It's annoying when you're trying to eat dinner and someone from work sees that you were just online. Yes, you can ignore it, but it can still be annoying if you don't manage it properly. It just requires a bit of discipline.
As for IM spam, if you just have your settings so that you only receive messages from people on your contact list, you should generally be fine. It doesn't disable the requests for people to add you to the list, so if anybody really wants to talk to you, they can still reach you.
Email is still more convenient when you're sending things back and forth that you want to save for a long time. IM doesn't do that well (yet.).
I think what's really needed is a way to store and search all the different forms of information you get from day to day in email and IM and strip out the fluff. I have tons of emails in my mailbox that I may just keep around for one or two lines in them, but would be nice if there was a simple way to delete all the stuff I don't need and keep the info I do.
A search for teens using Google didn't show any adult sites on the first four pages at least. I just had a quick look, and on page four I didn't bother going any further.
And the other comments about ring tones. What are you people searching for? I don't seem to have these problems at all.
Enlighten me.
Clever signature text goes here.
but is not exactly a new conycept. It's been around in the knowledge management world for many years.Eg, here's a link that mentions it from 1998, but I'm sure that there were a number of research papers that refer to this from earlier.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
I need to do "research" for a "company", too.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
...but still interesting.
If (and this is a really big if) it was well done, I might be interested in a program that sat between me and usenet, irc, IM, email (and whatever other mediums comes along), and filtered out the worst, brought the urgent stuff to my attention, and just stored the rest.
My initial negative reaction to his article was because for the technically savvy user, email (his major focus) is (or can be) like he wants. A bit of fiddling with procmail, install a bayesian filter, a bit of training, and email isn't really a problem.
That still leaves two fairly important problems which do need adressing - perhaps even by his "control panel". First, the tools need to get easier for the non-tech-savvy to use (although that's a much lesser problem than it was, given the integration of bayesian filtering in current versions of Mozilla). Second, the tools need to be expanded and integrated. My usenet client supports filtering using a static ruleset - but in its own "special" format. My email client uses bayesian filtering - but my IM client doesn't do any at all!
What would be nice is a single place where you write rules and/or feed stuff into bayesian filters for ALL your incoming communications. That'd be the tech-savvy version of Nielsen's "control panel", should be useful, and might not even be that hard to implement.
For a start, how hard would it be to write an IM to email gateway? That is, an IM client that accepts incoming IM messages, converts them into emails and feeds them into your MDA (procmail, say) where you could run it through whatever filters you wanted? Google turns up this project, but it looks to be nothing more than a rough outline of an initial design doc so far.
Still, if you took the concept and extended it, your MDA and MUA would become your CDA (communications delivery agent) and CUA (communications user agent) - methods for filtering, managing, and displaying all sorts of communications, not just email. If filters can keep pace with the spam, then that should solve the problen...
It's 6:18 in the morning so I'm a little groggy, but I honestly thought the headline read
"Information Pollution" is one of the newer buzz-phrases, appearing in various media to describe unwanted phone calls, faxes, emails, Jakob Nielsen, etc.
Also, this guy has a another funny point about Jakob Nielsen's press photos.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
Ironically, I've actually been trying to find a ringtone to give a friend as a Christmas gift. But information pollution (read: search engine spam) has made it impossible for me to find a decent version of the tune or clear instructions on how to install it on her phone. I'm even willing to pay!