Personal Information Practices and Technologies Predict Information Overload Indirectly through Affects

Everyone needs to somehow manage personal information, and there are numerous choices for technologies that support personal information management (PIM). Meanwhile, many suffer from experiences of information overload related to PIM. We developed a quantitative model of information overload in PIM and tested it against data we collected in a large-scale survey study (N = 1,011). Using structural equation modeling, we found that using many PIM technologies accounts for information overload through practices of keeping information and feeling of desperation, and through organizing and feeling of efficacy, but not directly. Our study deepens the understanding of information overload in the context of PIM and distinguishes different roles that technologies, practices, and affects have in relation to it. The findings highlight how designs and interventions targeted to reduce negative affects related to PIM could be the most effective in countering information overload.