A report by the U.S. National Institutes of Health revealed that data from its genetic-sequencing projects were swamping its computers. A leading British expert has warned that workers in many companies are close to breakdown because of data overload. Occupational psychologist Cary Cooper of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in England, says that e-mails and voice mail messages, data from the Web and junk faxes pose a serious health hazard. You can tell junk mail at a glance, but not junk e-mail. Similarly, there is so much data on the Web that when you look up a word on it, you can find 17,000 items containing references to it.
Many people feel they have to sit at their desks to sort it all out.
They have lunch at their terminals. They stop going out so much, and when they do they find they are being harassed by their pagers and mobile phones. They no longer meet people and make contacts because they feel they can't afford the time. They become more and more aggressive towards, and intolerant of, intrusions. Stress builds up, they smoke and drink more and they suffer immune problems, such as colds, headaches and aches and pains.