Sharing too much information on e-mail, instant messaging and social media is polluting the virtual environment and is becoming counterproductive.
So said Dion Chang, founder of Flux Trends, during the Sustainability Week held at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria.
According to Chang, data pollution is a slow but steady build-up of data that consumers produce 24/7, the long-term effects of which consumers don't yet fathom but are starting to feel the negative impact of.
"As digital communication, whether work-based or social media-based, is the lifeblood of 21st century living, we keep producing more and more but we don't get a sense of how much we are producing because digital storage feels infinite. But only as we start feeling the physical impact (ie: the endless e-mail treadmill) of our virtual world, will we start understanding how data pollution can be counterproductive," he said.
He pointed to lack of knowledge as a contributor to the growing pollution. "Employees will send more than one e-mail 'to all' at work, unaware of the amount of data utilised."
To Chang, revisiting non digital means of communication would be a way to curb data pollution. "For example it would take 30 seconds to call someone and set up a meeting but we rather send and bounce one e-mail back and forth around eight times to lock down that same meeting. It's more efficient to pick up the phone and speak to someone directly but we now feel that that would not be the correct protocol."
Causes of data pollution include misspelling, invalid character types, misinformation, design flaws, and functionality changes that lead to inconsistencies.
However, he revealed that companies are mass producers of data pollution and are slowly becoming aware of this. He pointed out that there are a few forward-thinking companies looking into data pollution. One such company is Atos, which has taken a zero e-mail initiative in an aim to curb this.
He noted that data pollution is intangible, and it is easy for digital consumers to be unaware that this kind of pollution exists or to shrug it off. He emphasised the importance of this virtual problem and compared it to being as dangerous as tangible pollution.
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