Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Information overload and (young) people's media use

A glance at the status quo of the information society and the development of the so-called 'digital universe' reveals that the amount of information searchable via the Internet is subject to continuous and rapid increase. This point is colourfully illustrated by an assertion we happened across: "today a person is subjected to more new information in a day than a person in the Middle Ages in his entire life" ⁰¹ .Of course, the validity of this statement depends on the social class of a human being living some five hundred years ago. Scholars, research workers or philosophers were most probably an exception to the rule. However, why do we feel this way? Why do we feel that we are faced with a permanent stream of information we are not really able to cope with and process?

"A lot of information, a lot of alternatives and a lot of choices have to be made. It takes time and energy and can cause stress and frustration when we make the wrong decisions, which we of course often do, as much of the information is aiming at making us feel that way. We live in a society of information overload, we get too many hits on the Net, too many reports to read in our job, too many power point presentations to listen to or, worst case, read too many meetings to attend, too many offers and mails in our physical and electronic mailboxes, too much "must read" information in order to be a good colleague, citizen or parent."⁰²   John Naisbitt's frequently-used witticism ("We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge") from some 30 years ago may well be verified by the facts and figures in our times. A white paper from the International Data Corporation (IDC)⁰³   calibrated the size and growth of the digital universe. In 2008, almost 400 billion gigabytes (3,892,179,868,480,350,000,000) of new digital information was produced. By 2011, the digital universe will be 10 times the size it was in 2006, reduplicating every 18 months. In ten years the digital universe will be 44 times the size it was in 2009. The duplication rate of published scientific information is, according to de Solla Price ⁰⁴ , estimated to be every ten to twenty years. However, new challenges concerning the processing of digital information have obviously to be met.

How and to what extent do people use new media like the Internet?

A current survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation⁰⁵   found out that the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically. 8-18 year-olds in the USA devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (this means more than 53 hours a week). Due to their ability to multitask, they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7,5 hours.

In Germany, 50 million people use the Internet for private or professional reasons. They devote an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes a day to using the Internet. 10 percent spend more than five hours a day on line⁰⁶  . 71 percent of those aged 7-10 use the Internet at home (provided their parental home offers access to the web). 93 percent of the 11-14 age group appreciate the benefits of web 2.0, a figure which rises as high as 99 percent for the 15-17 age group⁰⁷  . 

Researching information using search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing has advanced to the position of the most widely used Internet application. Although people spend a of lot time researching information, topics being searched are to a large extent either not scientific in nature or else confined to the level of popular science. There is no great difference between middle-brow users and researchers. A study conducted by the German National Library of Economics (ZBW), which undertook the questioning of scientific workers in 2007⁰⁸  , reveals that researchers also prefer search engines, even when seeking for scientific literature.

Fastest Rising by Quater

Fig. 1: Most popular searches on Google in the U.S. in 2009 ⁰⁹  

Fig. 2: Most popular searches on Google in the European Union in 2009 ¹⁰ 

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Researching information on the Internet using search engines: the National Qualification Framework

Most people feel that they can find everything required via a powerful search engine such as Google. Once the information has been found and connected in a sensible, intellectual way, new knowledge will be created. At least this is the practice of handling information at the beginning of the 21st century, an era that might be characterised by keywords like 'information overload' or the 'information explosion'. However, the unthinking use of search engines (a discussion on this topic was prevalent in the USA when Nicolas Carr published the essay "Is Google making us Stoopid") is in contrast to the underestimated value of subject databases and intellectual indexing, especially since even basic queries in search engines often produce results perceived as "satisfactory" by the users.

In our example, we are looking for subject-related information on the "Implementation of the European Qualification Framework and the Implementation of the National Framework in Germany compared to Austria". As the screenshot reveals, the results of this Google search are at first sight quite satisfactory - not least because quite a lot of websites dealing with this subject are provided by governmental organisations.

Fig.3:Search query using Google and the first-page results

However, using search engines might reveal some deficits when analysing the query results - particularly with regard to quality, seriousness, authenticity or subject-specific relevance:

• Scope, structure and quality of data available are mostly unknown.
• 'Link topological ranking procedures' need not guarantee sorting results according to relevance.
• Index spamming - as a process of altering a website so as to accord it one of the top places in the last of results - can distort a genuine ranking list.
• Synonyms and abbreviations are not implicated in the query because of no human/intellectual indexing.
• Content of specific databases is not necessarily searchable via search engines ("invisible web").
• No sorting possibilities are provided.
  

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Researching Information on the Internet using databases and portals: the National Qualification Framework

There a several reasons why researching scientific or subject-specific information tends to result in high-quality results. There is a connection between subject indexing and good research references. The indexing instruments (monitored list of keywords, classification system, abstracts) enable a more precise description of documents, and thus enable them to be found more easily during the search process.

The terminologically monitored list of keywords - for instance offered by the German Literature Database for VET (Literaturdatenbank Berufliche Bildung, LDBB) - offers users the advantage that the semantic environment is always displayed alongside the search word and synonyms, quasi-synonyms and abbreviations can be looked for at the same time. A search using the keyword "National Qualifications Framework" implies a search for NQF and NQR, for example). In addition to this, cross references are displayed in the form of main headings/subheadings or related keywords, acting as a navigation system to guide users through the database (in this example, a cross-reference to "crediting of prior learning", which in turn implies a search for ECTS and ECVET). In the full display of the documentation, all the publications of the author in question, all articles from the source listed, all documents relating to one of the indexed search words or all classification descriptions (notations) which have been allocated within the classification system can be accessed via a single click (see figure beneath).

Fig. 4: Display of a reference in the LDBB with different combination possibilities

Before achieving good results, it is necessary to write down a list of query terms and their semantic surroundings and then select useful information resources that correspond to the thematic scope of the search query. Unfortunately, this process seems quite difficult to handle because such subject-specific resources are often quite unknown or hard to find.

For our sample search there are special VET related information resources with quality checked information. Besides those mentioned above LDBB (the one and only database in Germany on all aspects of the thematic areas of VET and VET research), ReferNet and the VET-Bib offer information on VET and related issues.
VET-Bib is the European Literature database of CEDEFOP and comprises about 72,000 bibliographic references. The collection contains research reports, EU policy and legislative documents etc. from all over Europe. ReferNet is a structured and decentralised system for collecting data and information on VET and related issues. It permits the comparison of trends, developments and policies in the EU Member States as well as in Norway and Iceland.

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Perspectives

As a matter of fact, portals, databases, information and knowledge management systems may be termed as cornerstones on the way to information literacy, a vital competence in a society that is strongly influenced by the postulate of lifelong learning and a rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT). ICT has opened up new ways of shaping knowledge processes, providing new possibilities of retrieving and structuring information and of making it available to stakeholders.
It is up to the information professionals to disseminate the outstanding possibilities of searching for information in quality-checked databases and portals on the one hand and on the other hand to impart a broad range of information literacy as a basic competence and precondition for effective learning in school and university as well as in the scientific community later on.

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References

• BITKOM:
  Studie zur Mediennutzung: Schon Grundschüler häufig online. - 2009. - http://www.bitkom.org/de/presse/62013_60220.aspx [cited: 13.12.2010]
• Dücker, Sandra; Linten, Markus:
  As much as necessary, as little as possible: Indexing knowledge in vocational education and training research via the automated alignment of literature to projects within a knowledge management system. - Bonn: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, 2006. - [16 pp.]
  http://www.bibb.de/en/27551.htm [cited: 13.12.2010]
• Gantz John F.; Chute, Christopher:
  The diverse and exploding digital universe : an updated forecast of worldwide information growth through 2011. - Framingham: International Data Corporation, 2008. - http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/diverse-exploding-digital-universe.pdf [cited: 13.12.2010]
• Hippach-Schneider, Ute:
  Wachsendes Vertrauen durch besseres Wissen: das europäische Netzwerk ReferNet.In: Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis: BWP. - (2007), H. 3, pp. 30-32.
• The Kaiser Family Foundation report "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-to 18-Year-Olds". - 2010. - ttp://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh012010pkg.cfm [cited: 13.12.2010]
• Linten, Markus:
  Auf dem Weg zur Informationskompetenz: Portale und Datenbanken als Gegenpart zu Google & Co. - 11 pp.
  In: bildungsforschung. - 6 (2009), issue 2 http://www.bildungsforschung.org/index.php/bildungsforschung/article/viewFile/45/pdf [cited: 13.12.2010]
• Linten, Markus:
  Fachinformationen im Netz: Portale, Datenbanken und Informationssysteme zur Berufsbildungsforschung.
  In: Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis : BWP. - 38 (2009), H. 5, pp. 51-52
• Nelke, Margareta:
  Information Competence or Infotainment - where are we heading? - 2004. - http://www.icatonce.com/documents/040901InfotainmentProceedingsMNelke.pdf [cited: 14.12.2010]
• De Solla Price, Derek J:
  Little Science, Big Science.- Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974.
• (N)onliner Atlas 2008 :
  eine Topographie des digitalen Grabens durch Deutschland / TNS Infratest; Initiative D21. - München 2008.- http://www.nonliner-atlas.de [cited: 14.12.2010]
• Virtuelle Fachbibliotheken im System der überregionalen Literatur- und Informationsversorgung: Studie zu Angebot und Nutzung der Virtuellen Fachbibliotheken / E.F. Heinold u.a. - Hamburg, 2007. - http://www.zbw-kiel.de/ueber_uns/projekte/vifasys/gutachten_vifasys_2007_3_5.pdf [cited: 14.12.2010]

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footnotes:

1  https://supplychaintech.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/how-to-cope-with-information-overflow/ [6.12.2010]

2 Nelke, Margareta: Information competence or infotainment - where are we heading. (2004)

3 Cf.: Gantz, John F.; Chute, Christopher: The diverse and exploding digital universe : an updated forecast of worldwide information growth through 2011. - Framingham: International Data Corporation, 2008 - S. 2ff

4 De Solla Price, Derek J: Little Science, Big Science. - Frankfurt, 1974

5 The Kaiser Family Foundation report "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-to 18-Year-Olds" , 2010

6 (N)ONLINER ATLAS, 2008

7Studie zur Mediennutzung: Schon Grundschüler häufig online. BITKOM, 2009

8 Virtuelle Fachbibliotheken im System der überregionalen Literatur- und Informationsversorgung. Hamburg, 2007

9   http://www.google.com/intl/de/press/zeitgeist2009/regional.html#united-states  [6.12.2010]

10 http://www.google.com/intl/de/press/zeitgeist2009/regional.html#european-union [6.12.2010]

Last modified on: January 19, 2011