'Infomania' worse than marijuana

[Toon]

Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers, new research has claimed.

The study for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages.

Researchers found 62% of people checked work messages at home or on holiday.

The firm said new technology can help productivity, but users must learn to switch computers and phones off.

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[zumojuice]

you do have to wonder what this is based on. 3 people and a dog or something. I mean it mentions 1100 respondents but how many of those were IQ tested? How do you measure the effect that the internet/phone might have ? I imagine its less a drop in actual IQ but more the ability to concentration to apply it.

[D856C]

Mostly I find this is the result when technolgoy is built with no clear distinction between data and information.

In other words, it's not infomania, people are flooded with data and no tools to prioritize or sort it. Contrary to popular opinion, there is very, very little actual information technology and almost no information workers.

The people in the article are data processors. They don't really have any priority to the data processing, other than the part of the pile sitting immediately in front of them.