Receiving an e-mail message can be a pleasant and energizing thing. But 30 e-mail messages waiting for you first thing in the morning or a laptop that chimes with an incoming message every minute or so can be both distracting and disorienting. That translates into stress.
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Yet the information flood is not just an e-mail issue. It’s precipitated by the waves of information we receive from the web in general. Fortunately, there are ways to handle it.
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Start by remembering that not every newsletter has to be read and not every e-mail message must be answered immediately, says Michael Ziegelmayer from the German Association of Psychologists (BDP) in Berlin. A practical approach is to create folders to sort incoming mail based on urgency. This makes them easier to review afterwards.
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Trying to stay on top of every aspect of breaking news can also be a major drain. Given the incredible volume of information out there, it’s not a particularly reasonable goal either, Ziegelmayer says. Moderation is a better option. Concentrated attention tends to be more restricted: only a fifth of the content on the monitor actually reaches our consciousness.
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Professor Sabine Trepte emphasizes as well that there’s no way to read all potentially interesting items in a concentrated way. Skimming a portion of it is usually sufficient. That is part of the filtering process, the media psychologist from the Hamburg Media School notes. That means selecting a specific spectrum of the information, not unlike watching television, Trepte notes.
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The key is knowing what your goal is, Trepte says. If you’re interested primarily in political backstories, then monitoring two or three selected portals is generally good. Those who want to keep informed about the latest events around the world can probably even focus on one source.
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What about those accustomed to using RSS feed readers or services…