Page 79 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 201579at finding what they are looking for quickly and organising it to serve their ends.The effects of this information overload, which has already been christened with terms such as infoxication, infobesity and infopollution, are beginning to be felt in the professional world. It is reckoned that professionals can spendtwo hours a day dealing with their emails,even though one out of every three messages is considered unnecessary; and that an employee might explore forty website per day on average and, if they work in the world of knowledge, check their emails between fifty and a hundred times a day (Hemp, P., 2009). Such is the extent of the phenomenon that there have been organised initiatives against it and in favour of the right of communications instead (Aguad- ed-Gómez, 2014).Whatever the case, the effects of information overload are being felt in the professional ambit. A report by Human Capital Interaction (2014) on distractions in the workplace revealed that the productivity of half of all professionals is affected by email, unproductive Internet use or by having many browser windows open. An earlier study had already shown the effect of managing tasks by paying attention to several media at once (Ophir, E., Nass, C. & Wagner, A. D., 2009). Compared to professionals who do not make such intensive use of technology, individuals who develop what is called chronic multitasking (using several media, constantly switching from one to another) are more likely to be distracted by irrelevant stimuli. It might be thought, in contrast, that their skill at switching from one task to another is greater, but what the studyprecisely showed is that these people are less efficient in this respect owing to their lesser ability to weed out interferences.In the world of knowledge, professionals must have the capacity to select and manage information with critical judgement.Furthermore, the ability to select and manage information is not just a question of succeeding in focusing attention on what is really import- ant, but also involves a skill that has always been required – critical ability. Technology makes it possible for everyone in the world with an Inter- net connection to create and share content. This means that it is possible to find high-quality information, sometimes free of charge, but also that much of what is found is superficial, incom- plete, unconnected or simply false. Therefore professionals should equip themselves with the capacity to analyse any content fast to decide on its veracity and appropriateness to the task they are performing.More than ten years ago a study warned of the importance of critical judgement in handling information gleaned from the Internet (Graham, L. & Metaxas, P. T., 2003). Although the study was carried out on students, it showed their tendency to use the Internet as a sole source of information and not to corroborate the results obtained; they were particularly vulnerable to disinformation from advertising or from the government. Perhaps the most salient featureof the study is that differences were not found in students belonging to different years – a factJesús Alcoba