NY Times Article: $650B loss in productivity due to social tools

by Patti Anklam

August 19, 2008 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0

In June, the New York Times reported on the emergence of a new organization dedicated to understanding information overload, the Information Overload Research Group (IORG)*. The context of the article referenced Basex research indicating an annual loss to in the United States of $650B per year in lowered productivity and hampered innovation. Colleague Celine Roque referenced an article that referenced this article. ) More highlights from the research and IORG’s conference last month, are posted at Technotherapy, including:

28% of a worker’s time is spent dealing with interruptions that are neither urgent nor important
12% of the average worker’s time is spent thinking or reflecting

Lately as I have talked with non-techie family about my work, I’ve described Twitter and FB and how they work. The typical reaction is, “sounds like you can waste a lot of time doing that.” Yes, I say, but … and list all the benefits of keeping in touch, peripheral awareness, etc. (via Valdis Krebs: a great list of benefits and resources in Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide), but they remain mostly unconvinced.

What I find interesting is that the Basex study (released last December) and information currently available on the IORG website primarily address the email and instant messaging problem. As we past the digital divide represented by the emergence of Gen Y, we will want to understand better whether Facebook/MySpace, Twitter, and reading RSS feeds are performance enhancers or inhibitors. And of course the world has changed since last year.

This upcoming, social, generation may be more relational and capable of leveraging the knowledge, talent, and context of others than any before (but I often wonder whether they will even be capable of reflective thinking, even for 12% of their time, and also whether it matters). Look for a future blog post on this.

One of the Basex survey’s findings was that a significant source of time loss was the time that takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work. Google Labs has reputably been working on the Email Addict application that lets Gmail users remind themselves to take a break. For MAC users, there is the more profoundly named Freedom, which shuts down your system completely so that you have to go to extra trouble to reboot and satisfy those cravings for connectivity. (Thanks to Dave Weinberger for the tip about Freedom.)

While writing this entry, I let myself be distracted by emails about seven times. I also checked Twitter, Facebook, and Bloglines (wherein I found that Valdis has shared a nice free for listening album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, which made a nice soundtrack for my attention deficit), made a doctor’s appointment, checked snail mail, and listened in on my husband’s call to wish our niece a happy birthday. Sigh.

*on 8/20, Jonathan Spira posted notes from the IORG’s first conference. There is much good detail.

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Whether reflective thinking matters? That’s a pretty radical point of view. While the western world is characterized more by its ready-fire-aim (Peter Senge) approach than the eastern world, global economic domination by the likes of India, and China is pretty much guaranteed. Planning without reflection is not planning at all. Execution without planning is completely ineffective. I would agree with you that even the 12% time spent in reflection today may be reduced dramatically but I do not think that this in any way, shape, or form, can be a good thing. I would not be surprised if Hitler’s followers were largely characterized by their lack of reflection and the independent thought which is its outcome. While I don’t expect a similar leader to rise in the West, even more ‘benign’ leaders like, oh I don’t know, a certain president, can wreak great havoc when they are voted into office not once but twice, even after they had shown their true colours. Given society’s current momentum I expect more of the same difference. As a certain thought-leader once wrote:

“I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right

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