Information Overload in a Network of Targeted Communication
Volume: Volume 35, No. 3
Issue: Autumn 2004
Pages: 542-560
Authors: Timothy Van Zandt
Title: Information Overload in a Network of Targeted Communication
Abstract: As the costs of generating and transmitting information fall, the main bottlenecks in communication are becoming the human receivers, who are overloaded with information. For networks of targeted communication, I discuss the meaning of information overload, provide a theoretical treatment as the outcome of strategic interaction between senders, and examine mechanisms for allocating the attention of receivers. Such mechanisms increase the cost of sending messages and thereby shift the task of screening messages from the receivers to the senders, who know the contents of the messages. If the communication cost is low, then a tax on sending messages benefits all the senders if either the tax is redistributed to them as lump-sum transfers or their information about the receivers is sufficiently accurate.