Information Avoidance: Out of the Shadow of Information Seeking
Information Avoidance: Out of the Shadow of Information Seeking
Jette Seiden Hyldegård, Alison Hicks, Pamela Mckenzie, Jenny Bronstein, Ian Ruthven and Gunilla Widén
Have you ever ignored news to escape information overload? Or avoided information from certain people, sources and institutions? Then you confirm recent research on information avoidance.
Background
People avoid information for many reasons to cope with and manage daily life. That said, information avoidance (hereafter IA) has long been in the shadow of information seeking in information science, challenging the idea that seeking information is good while abstaining from it is bad. IA has not only been seen as wrong and abnormal, but also as a practice implying severe risks to society at large. The research interest in IA practices has, thus, been much lower than the interest in seeking and using information. This picture has started to change in response to the acknowledgement of information overload and the recognition that cybercrime and mis- and disinformation campaigns produce information that should be avoided. The urgent need for individuals’ critical awareness is demonstrated on a daily basis that calls for a re-examination of IA as a positive set of practices.
—People avoid information for many reasons to cope with and manage daily life—
Up till now our understanding of information avoidance has remained fragmentary. Researchers have been unable to give a single coherent definition of what IA actually is. With our critical conceptual review of IA, we sought to address this oversight by theorizing IA as an instance of human information practice—distinct from, but co-existing dynamically with information seeking.
The conceptual analysis
From our deep analysis and evaluation of prior research of IA in information science we identified three general limitations: information has typically been narrowly defined, e.g. as good and wanted; IA is negatively depicted, and IA is absent from models and frameworks of information behaviour. This contrasted with other disciplines like communication and psychology.
A wide range of related IA terms and definitions emerged from our analysis of the multidisciplinary literature. When mapping and conceptualizing the 36 identified terms, we identified seven key characteristics: Intensity, granularity, engagement, control, relevance, quality and timeliness. We then grouped these characteristics into three overarching categories: information-related, where the type and form of information drives avoidance activity, person-related, where avoidance activity is related to individual’s values and conditions, and person-information related, where avoidance is linked to both the form of information and personal factors (see Table 1).
| Information-related |
| Intensity The amount, pace, or force of information |
| Granularity The scale of information, whether encompassing entire information sources or individual pieces of content |
| Person-related |
| Engagement How invested or involved a person is with information, whether active, receptive, or passive |
| Control The extent to which the person has or believes they have command over information |
| Person-information-related |
| Relevance The significance or importance that information has to a person, including the degree of specificity |
| Quality The authority or credibility information has to a person |
| Timeliness The temporal suitability or appropriateness of information to a person |
During our critical analysis, the mapping of the 36 IA-related terms and their accompanying references contributed a new conceptual perspective of IA. For example, blunting, delegation, hedging, ignorance and/or self-handicapping, among others, positioned IA as mediating engagement.
Figure 1 shows the seven characteristics shaping the practices of IA. However, the practice of IA is not separated from seeking, but co-exists with information seeking as one of many information practices. In a recent paper we propose how radial mapping may be used to shape the complex and dynamic interplay between information seeking and avoidance practices.
Through this conceptual analysis of IA, we provided a new definition: “Information avoidance is the practices that moderate interaction with information by 1) reducing the intensity (amount and/or flow) across multiple levels of granularity; 2) restricting engagement with or control over information, whether actively, passively or receptively, and/or 3) excluding information based on relevance, quality, and timeliness criteria”.
The holistic approach to studying information avoidance also revealed that avoidance practices are varied and complex. Similar to information seeking, people avoid information for a variety of reasons. Additionally, numerous factors shape information avoidance, including cognitive, affective, personal, and situational aspects.
Concluding remarks
The time has come to reconsider classic concepts in research along with frameworks and models of information behaviour and practices. New methodologies and methods are needed to investigate the often hidden and tacit practices of avoiding information. New self-caring information literacies like critical ignoring also need to be explored. Finally, we need to investigate how IA can be considered in system design given that personalization, AI and algorithms shape and control what the user sees and doesn’t see.
The critical conceptual review of IA serves as a good starting point for IA research:
- It contributes a historical and conceptual overview
- It categorizes IA by seven information and/or person related characteristics
- It establishes a new definition
- It raises new research questions
Returning to the opening question and any feeling of guilt for ignoring news, remember that IA can be a very meaningful and even healthy information practice!
This article is a ‘translation’ of the critical conceptual review:
Alison Hicks, Pamela McKenzie, Jenny Bronstein, Jette Seiden Hyldegård, Ian Ruthven, Gunilla Widén (2024). Information avoidance: A critical conceptual review. An Annual Review of Information Science and technology (ARIST) paper. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 1-21. https://doi.org./10.1002/asi.24968
McKenzie, P., Hicks, A., Bronstein, J., Hyldegård, J., Ruthven, I., & Widén, G. (2024). The shape(s) of information practice: Using radial mapping qualitatively. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 61.
https://doi.org./10.1002/asi.24968
Cite this article in APA as: Hyldegård, J. S., Hicks, A., Mckenzie, P., Bronstein, J., Ruthven, I., & Widén, G. Information avoidance: Out of the shadow of information seeking. (2024, December 3). Information Matters, Vol. 4, Issue 12. https://informationmatters.org/2024/12/information-avoidance-out-of-the-shadow-of-information-seeking/
