DSI Information Abundance Project

Ever since there was more information than people could realistically digest, we have been concerned about information overload. Across different areas of life people have to manage a more and more crowded information space and they have to make numerous decisions per day among an abundance of available information sources.  However, associated concerns such as information overload, internet addiction, lack of concentration, political polarisation or social fragmentation are rarely based on empirical findings about the actual effects of information abundance on people's lives. There is also no common understanding of what is actually meant by information overload and how it should be evaluated in normative terms.

The DSI Information Abundance Project seeks to inform this debate and possible actions.

The project examines how Swiss citizens experience the abundance of information in digital media environments.  Focus group interviews (N=40) in 2022 and a representative online survey (N=2,049) in 2023 were conducted to investigate how the Swiss-German population experiences the abundance of information in the areas of news, entertainment and digital personal communication.

Sophia C. Volk (co-lead)
Sina Blassnig
Sabrina H. Kessler
Sarah Marschlich
Minh Hao Nguyen
Lea Stahel
Nadine  Strauß

Schulz, A., & Volk, S. C. (2023). Zwischen Wertschätzung und Überlastung – Wie Schweizerinnen und Schweizer die Fülle von Informationen und Angeboten erleben. Ergebnisbericht des Information Abundance Projekts der Digital Society Initiative. Zürich: Universität Zürich.

Volk, S. C., Schulz, A., Blassnig, S., Marschlich, S., Nguyen, M. H., & Strauß, N. (2024). Selecting, avoiding, disconnecting: a focus group study of people’s strategies for dealing with information abundance in the contexts of news, entertainment, and personal communication. Information, Communication & Society, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2358167