Do we communicate too much? iHCI 2010 Keynote by Professor Richard Harper | Part 1

DO WE COMMUNICATE TOO MUCH?

In this talk I will reflect on contemporary human expression when it is often said that everyone is suffering from communications overload. I will ask how we might measure communication, and draw a contrast between different ways of doing so. I will look at how measuring is done in communications engineering and computer science, for example, and will review some of the literature on email overload and the burdens of social networking that can be found in the anthropology, communications science and social science literature.

I will contrast all this with techniques appropriate and commonplace in the everyday world of human affairs and suggest that one of the problems that we have when answering this question has to do with deciding on the relative merits and values of everyday and scientific reason. I will remark that HCI has to deal with this distinction in much of its current research activities.

Presented at the Irish HCI conference 2010.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• hci
• communicate
• e-mail
• toomuchwork
• too much e-mail