Information Bombardment: Rising Above the Digital Onslaught

A professor at the McMaster University in Canada, Bontis has lectured widely to various banks and businesses about how to handle "the information bombardment that attacks us from every angle" in the digital age. The difficulty is evident in his first book: a clearly written, well-organized, but uneven volume. Stating upfront that his is a "practitioner-focused book," Bontis effectively argues that "most of us have no idea how to filter, organize and prioritize all the information we receive" from multiple sources such as e-mail and the Internet, and that we have "become addicted to knowing the latest and greatest piece of information." The bulk of the book presents concise descriptions of the impact of information bombardment on individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions. Bontis is especially good at detailing the resultant stress-related physical conditions. But the author's concluding prescriptions for dealing with information bombardment tend to be bland and general: "prioritization is a useful tool for managing email messages" and "[a]ccelerated information sharing is best promoted when an aligned team atmosphere is present."