This post takes a look at the effect of smartphones on small children, 10 years and younger. Recent surveys show figures around 25% for children under 10 who have their own device, and these numbers are rising; the risks are severe, and span a wide range from damaged personality development to visual impairment.
The post goes beyond the risks and looks at some solutions, at the country, school, and personal level.

While much of the world today suffers from information overload, there are still places where information is scarce. And that scarcity sometimes costs people their lives.

In the maternity ward of Zanzibar’s largest public health facility, Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, patient data is listed on a dry-erase board. The information on the board consists of the number of women admitted, the type and severity of their conditions, and whether or not they survived.

A recent Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology report provided some intriguing thoughts about the pressure facing chief information security officers (CISOs) to keep their organizations secure and how they are combating information and vendor solution overload.

Pregnant women are so overwhelmed with messages about what to do and what not to do that many are tuning out. They keep boozing and smoking in alarming numbers and most make only minor modifications to their diet, the leading study of Australian womens’ health shows. Nearly 80 per cent of pregnant women drink alcohol, and 30 per cent of pregnant smokers keep smoking despite official health advice to quit while pregnant.

With the proliferation and ubiquity of information and communication technologies (ICTs), it is becoming imperative for individuals to constantly engage with these technologies in order to get work accomplished. Academic literature, popular press, and anecdotal evidence suggest that ICTs are responsible for increased stress levels in individuals (known as technostress). However, despite the influence of stress on health costs and productivity, it is not very clear which characteristics of ICTs create stress. (more…)

One in four of over 1,300 managers surveyed, admitted to actually suffering ill health as a result of the amount of information they handle.

There is a widespread view held by health clinicians that their work effectiveness is impaired by ‘information overload.’ Building upon a previous work by Wilson, a review of the literature was undertaken to look for the evidence of this. It was found that the literature, particularly in the context of the clinical environment, was limited. (more…)