At this moment I am sitting in a cafe on the street of Manchester city center. It is neither the layout of the cafe nor the taste of the coffee that attracts me (don't get me wrong, the coffee is good here). What I am enjoying now is the wireless Internet connection.   As someone who is from the Internet generation, I have experienced strongly how technologies can impact people's lifestyles and find that the Internet is impeartive for me. While  surfing on the web, I am thinking about writing some stuff now.

It is believed that the world is witnessing a revolutionised transformation led by technologies, which is ultimately determined by the rapid advancement of the Internet and the WorldWideWeb.  There has been dramatic change in the rate of Internet use age in the last decades.  According to the Internet World States (2007), the first three top countries in Internet usage up to now, the US, China and Japan have got 211, 137 and 86 millions of users.  The UK Office for National Statistics (2006) also reported that the growth of household having broadband connections increased from 54.4% in 2005 to 72.6% in 2006 and the ratio was only 18% in 2003.

Under such rapid expansion of ICTs, it is arguably true that the benefits of living in a networked society are not equally distributed to everyone. Some believe that technologies are the key to improving industry productivity and building a civilised society, whereas some think that the troubles created by the Internet are outweighing the values it created.

RFID

Technology advancement has always played an active role in the progress of human society, too often technologies that can bring a positive impact on industry productivity and facilitate human lives will attract the most attentions. The emergence of RFID technology has no exception.  The retail industry is perhaps the first one that recognised the potential of RFID and used it aggressively in the business world. Wal-Mart was the first retailer who adopted RFID and the motivation is more or less to do with competitive advantage. As Rutner et al (2004) indicate that Wal-Mart’s aggressive stance on RFID is because it believes that by being first to deploy the technology can sustain a competitive advantage. In the UK, the wave of RFID was led by retailers like Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer the embracement of RFID already took place a few years ago. (Jones et al 2004)

The reason why RFID has become retailers’ favourite is revealed by Srivastava’s (2007) comment: “Clearly, the advantage to customers of a retail store deploying RFID is a speedier checkout. If every item in a consumer’s shopping basket is tagged and the necessary reader is suitably installed, there should no longer be any need to lay the items on the belt and manually scan each one for purposes of determining the final bill. On the other hand, retailers can achieve automated and seamless flows of stock by integrating RFID throughout their suppliers systems.”

In a broader social context, the implications could be even more valuable. Deploying RFID to keep track of pupils has become a viable option to enhance their safety. Legoland in Denmark, a public leisure park, is building up its attractiveness through RFID to assist families concerned for the personal safety of their children and elderly relatives. RFID is also being used by hospitals to track mentally challenged patients and newborns as well as facilitating the delivery of health care by its ability to determine the location of a patient within a hospital.  (ITU 2005)

Surely not every innovation is perfect and RFID may also bring harmful effects if not handled carefully. The mandated requirement of adopting RFID from dominating retailers like Wal-Mart is likely to bring potential conflict over the supply chain the not all suppliers have the financial and technical capability of adopting such technology. Spekman and Sweeney II (2006) argue that RFID deployment can bring problems via two sources: one is the physical barriers and another is interpersonal impediments that bring destruction of trust and collaborative behavior.

Individual privacy is also a serious concern. The ultimate purpose of using RFID to interpret and share consumer data has a high degree of intimation to consumer privacy. Ohkubo et al. (2005) suggest that leaking information pertaining to personal property and tracking the consumer’s spending history and patterns, and physical whereabouts are two main trust issues related to RFID. In 2003, the launch of a campaign against retailers that employ RFID by the UK’s leading human rights and civil liberties organization, Liberty was sparked by a report saying one major retailer was using RFID to automatically take photographs of customers when they selected packets of tagged razor-blades from the shelf.

Convergence technologies

The Internet and the digital and telecommunication technologies have dramatically impacted human society. The last decades has seen a consistent development of the convergence technologies. The Internet has evolved from a traditional static object to something much more dynamic and interactive. Mobile phones are no longer limited to be a tool for making phone calls, but rather becomes a more entertaining console. This has encouraged the emergence of proliferation of information about lifestyles, cultures and economic issues.  

For developing countries, convergence technologies have revealed a greater potential in their social and economic development. Boza (2001) indicated that in Latin America countries like Peru and Chile, Internet and telecommunication devices have proved their value in helping small-medium companies, farmers and artisans to connect to participate in the global economy. In developed countries, latest convergence such as virtual reality is also playing a lively role in education and research. The University of Sussex now offer lab safety training by allowing students to interact with a virtual lab environment. (University of Sussex 2002)

Meanwhile, the wealth created by convergence technologies may in some areas be offset by their waste. E-waste has become a serious threat to worldwide environment, especially developing countries. In 2003, there was 70% of the heavy metals in landfills in India came from wasted computers and consumer electronics equipment (BBC 2003). In addition, concerns related to skill shortage still remains. A study in 2006 by recruitment firm Russell Reynolds Associates indicated that 65 per cent of senior UK executives believe convergence has created a skills gap and only 19 per cent of the 125 respondents surveyed from media and technology organizations thought there were ‘very prepared’ for staffing challenges.  (VnuNet 2006)

 E-learning

Fortunately the Internet has left us some means to solve knowledge shortfalls. The transformation of education through ICTs has enabled organisations to delivery training across national and time boundaries.  Webster (2001)’s study revealed that the learning curves of e-learning student were 60 per cent faster than classroom counterparts. The UK’s BAE Systems has already launched its Virtual University (VU) by co-operating with Thomson NETg to provide 350 online courses which covers a series of professional skills. The initiative saves £1.5 million per year due to reduced travel, accommodation, room and tutor costs. (Fallon 2005) The potential of the Internet in education is not recognised only by business. A survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education (citied in Wild et al 2002) indicated that 60 per cent of US colleges and universities offered online courses in 2000 and 92 per cent plan on expanding their online programs in 2001.

Surveillance

Another debate regarding ICTs is the use of surveillance. It is true that as a country progresses, the guard of individual’s welfare and safety will emerge on the government’s agenda. Although being considered to be great intimacy to individual privacy, some findings show that positive effects resulted from CCTV devices has taken place. It was discovered by Armitage et al (1999 citied in Gozens et al 2005) that CCTV had a significant impact on decreasing all recorded property crime (burglary, car crime, criminal damage, handling stolen goods and fraud) in Burnley. Webb and Laycock (1992 citied in Gozens et al 2005) also found CCTV installation at London Underground stations reduced robberies compared with a control group.

 On the other hand, things are so not clear-cut because surveillance has gained some bad reputations. Wood (2005) indicated that surveillance devices encouraged the voyeurism culture to a extent that Japan experienced an apparent epidemic illicit  “upskirt” photography and South Korea experienced the illicit photographing of women in changing rooms etc. (Kim 2003, citied in Wood 2005) Intimation at workplace was also a spreading because of surveillance. A poll in the USA by Louis Harris found more than 89 per cent of Americans concerned about invasions of workplace privacy (Minehan, 1999). These facts are brining increasingly concerns about the use of surveillance devices and making the balance between ensuring citizen safety and keeping citizen privacy becoming a difficult task for governments.

Conclusions

It is obvious that technologies have been a double-edged sword ever since they were invented. Although the debate around the prevention or the adaptation of ICTs is likely to be ongoing, ICTs are still one of the key elements contributing to the progress of our society and culture. The impact can be seen in every aspect of our life. Even for people who have witnessed few advantages provided by technologies, developments in ICTs should not be stopped as they are needed in the combat against technological garbage.  People, regardless of their nationalities and professions, must recognise that everyone has the responsibility for how technologies are used.  Technologies could become the most beneficial tool that has ever been created in the history, however, they might also become the disastrous that human beings never experienced, all depending on in whose hand they are in.

The ways in which people communication, process, share and select  information has been dramatically changed since the Internet has been put into practice. Information has never been important than ever in today’s society. Living in the so-called information society, it is vital for individuals and organisations to have the right and ability to capture the information they want in an effective and efficient manner. While this is the ultimate objective being pursued by everyone, it is more easily said than done because of the shadow of information overload. The aim of this article is to examine some of the causes and effects of information overload and illustrate some of the possible methods that could be used to overcome such problem.

The reasons why people experience information overload are vary. They can be generally categorised as the quantity of historical data, the accuracy and relevancy of the data and the lack of means by which the data can be easily analysed.  These are further linked with the way that how technologies are being used in the information society.

The EURESCOM PARTICIPANTS in Project P947, which involve four giant telecommunication companies in Europe:  Swisscom AG Tele Danmark A/S Telenor AS  Eircom plc (2001) attribute the root causes of information overload to several elements including Computer mediated communication (CMC), Mobile access, Always-on’ capabilities of networks, Hypertext, Life-style related factors, New marketing strategies and technologies etc. It is obvious that the Internet is likely to become the root cause of IO .

The InternetWorldStates (2006) reported that the Internet usage growth increased from 16 million of users in 1996 to 1096 million in 2006, and certainly such trend will probably continue. A direct impact derived from the Internet is the use of e-mail.  Amis (1999) reported that: "One study, Messaging Practices in the Knowledge Economy, commissioned by Pitney Bowes Inc. and undertaken in 1998 by the Institute for the Future claimed that 38% of UK workers were 'very distracted' by interruptions from emails and other electronic communications such as cellular phones, voicemail and fax. The study claimed that UK workers said they had to deal with an average of 171 electronic communications per day, while their American counterparts were apparently dealing with over 200 a day. "

In the world of economics, there is a concept called diminishing returns.  Worthington et al (2005) define this concept as: “…as more of a variable factor is combined with a given volume of a fixed factor, then eventually both marginal and average returns to the variable factor must decline.” Suppose the human brain is a container processing a fixed amount of information, with the information received is a non-stop growing variable, there will be a stage at which information can become too much and people will be overwhelmed. 

Despite technologies, human beings ourselves may be the real cause behind. Individuals should be considered as goal-seeking, cybernetic systems. This implies that individuals will always have the need to make decisions and this is only available if there is information available to support the selection process. Although there is usually one final decision made by an individual, people tend to consider as many alternatives as possible and each possible alternative being considered could become a potential requirement for some information. Needless to explain why search engine has gained much popularity, yet some useful information are hardly embedded within the thousands of result pages.

Having said this, some organiztions have made great effort to overcome the IO issues. Zeldes (2000), an engineer from Intel, designed a training program involving three steps targeting at information management: Awareness training, Group Discussions and Skills Coaching. http://blogs.intel.com/it/2006/10/information_overload_iii_first.html

The program was deployed across the company and the result was rewarding. Zeldes (2006) found that 80% of participants viewed it as beneficial, there was an improvement in the e-mail effectiveness in 71% of employees ; 63% saw an improvement in the quality of e-mail they receive from others; and the group e-mail effectiveness had an increase in the eyes of 75% of managers.

Such an initiative should be considered as a good practice because it takes teamwork, co-ordination and communications between people within an organization as the staring point and illustrates the important role of human factor in battling through information overload. In addition, self- assessment of things like e-mail etiquette and stress and time management skills will all work well alone with technical knowledge. This also reveals a hope for people who are under the pressure of information overload. Perhaps there is nothing such as information overload, all we need is the improvement in our knowledge and skills, some awareness of how to command the information around us and co-operations with people living and working with us.