An Overview on Information and Communication Overload

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview on information and communication overload. The theme is contextualized and the main concepts are discussed based on the published literature. The individual, the organizational and the social perspectives are considered. To deepen this discussion, the authors developed a bibliometric analysis, which demonstrated the steady increase of interest in this topic, apparently enhanced by new developments in information technology. These technologies have presented solutions for some problems, but at the same time they have raised new issues of information overload. The bibliometric analysis also shows that many of these new issues are communication issues, contributing to justify our argument that, currently, the problems of information overload and communication overload are interrelated.