12/12/16 - Only 20% of US adults have information overload, but those who do feel burden (28)

12/12/16 - Only 20% of US adults have information overload, but those who do feel burden (28)

The Pew Research Center released a report looking into the extent of information overload facing adults in the U.S. While the majority don't feel particularly overwhelming, it's quite interesting to see that there are quite a lot of people who do feel the overload. These people tend to have access to less technology, be poorer, less well-educated and older too according to the author of the report, Jonathan Spira. The problem gets worse when there are 'high information demands on people' by institutions like banks and schools since they'll suffer as they're not digitally adept enough to perhaps provide that information. Another interesting point is how Spira says:'There is so much information out there that people are no longer able to distinguish between legitimate information and fake news.' A quote like this could be easily be compared to what happen in the U.S Presidential Election where people totally unaware were actually reading fake news about the candidates. The main takeaway from here is that the overload some feel is so significant that it further deepens this digital divide that exists between people in the modern world.

• Some 20% of American adults feel the burden of information overload
• Americans feel overloaded now than they did in 2006, when the figure was 27%
• 77% of US adults say they like having so much information at their fingertips
• 47% of those whose household income is less than $30,000 sometimes feel stressed by the information they have to keep track of compared with 39% of those earning more than $75,000

I feel that this report is quite insightful in letting us understand the extent of information overload that people have to deal with in the modern world. With fake news being addressed here, a definite cause is of course the lack of gatekeepers that there are on the internet platform and due to this it appears to me that this overload will only continue in growth. With this it'll be interesting to see how in the next couple of years how many more or possibly less people will feel the overload.