Failing to get the message across? Information overload might be the issue

JOKR Chief Legal & Compliance Officer Matthew Saliba on Thursday noted that people have stopped taking the time to fully decipher and understand messages, instead allowing their own ideas to cloud the intended meaning.

Dr Saliba started off the discussion by questioning: “When did people stop reading with the intention of understanding?”

He remarked that in today’s world, people are opting to read material with a “pre-conceived understanding of what they think is in the message”.

However, as a result, they are “failing to actually understand the content of what is sent to them, regardless of how clear and simple it may be”.

He acknowledged that this is a situation that he is witnessing take place on social media, as well as in emails and documents.

Trying to point towards a reason as to why this is happening, Dr Saliba said that he “can only imagine that this is due to information overload”. This is a situation where an individual ends up feeling overwhelmed by the amount of data presented to them, a common occurrence nowadays given the widespread use of the Internet and the platforms that are associated with it, such as social media and blogs. This has made people feel “tired of reading”.

“Can we please bring back reading with intent? It makes life so much easier as it reduces extra work for all people involved and is a sign of respect towards the person sending the message in the first place,” he concluded.

Replying to Dr Saliba, Luke Mika, Key Account Director at Profiles by Kantar, agreed that this might be due to information overload. “In a way, I feel like social media has conditioned us to look for headlines and so we end up skimming longer texts, instantly interpreting the bits that we pick up rather than really digesting the information,” he added.

Dr Salia is a seasoned Lawyer with various years of experience working in multinational enterprises across a variety of industries, including e-commerce, online gambling, food, franchising, shipping and freight, structural engineering, international recruitment and corporate services. He has served as Chief Legal & Compliance Officer at Germany-based retail delivery platform JOKR for two years.

He holds a Doctor of Laws and a Bachelor of Laws, both from University of Malta, and is particularly skilled in employment law and corporate law.