Information Avoidance: A Form of Interaction with Information
No contexto de uma sociedade veloz, em que a informação circula não só muito rapidamente, mas também em grandes quantidades, o conceito information avoidance é pertinente para perceber algumas estratégias que as pessoas utilizam para lidar com a informação que lhes chega.
Information avoidance has been studied within the field of information science, as well as in psychology and communication, for example. This concept represents one way—among others—of interacting with informational content (Hicks et al., 2025) and does not imply passivity or disconnection from information.
A traditional literature review conducted by Hicks et al. (2025) identified seven characteristics of information avoidance, divided into three categories: information-related, person-related, and person-information related. For the concept of information avoidance:
Information-related
“Intensity: refers to the amount, pace, or force of information” (pp. 334–335). Intensity concerns the quantity and speed at which information arrives, which can lead to information overload and/or feelings of fatigue and overexposure. Information avoidance may involve reducing the content accessed (based, for example, on criteria such as quality or timeliness). It can act as an emotional defence mechanism, either in relation to the content itself or to the sheer volume of information.
“Granularity: refers to the scale of information, whether encompassing entire information sources or individual pieces of content (pp. 334-335). This relates to the level of detail of information, and information avoidance is used to manage resources (such as information sources) or topics within a broader context to which access is granted.
Person-related
“Engagement: refers to how invested or involved a person is with information, whether active, receptive, or passive” (pp. 334-335). Here, information avoidance refers to avoiding information “through lack of activity, with the side-lining of information” (p. 336) in situations of disinterest, apathy, or fatigue. Engagement exists along a continuum of activity, which includes passive and active forms of contact with information (the latter, for example, when people deliberately design strategies to avoid specific topics or content).
“Control: refers to the extent to which the person has or believes they have command over information” (pp. 334-335). In this case, information avoidance is shaped by the influence a person can exert over a situation. It may take the form of actions that create non-informational spaces. This demonstrates how control operates at a “social level” (p. 337), for instance, by guiding the direction of a conversation.
Person-information-related
“Relevance: refers to the significance or importance that information has to a person, including the degree of specificity” (pp. 334-335). Relevance can be viewed as the opposite of information overload, when people seek information but on very particular subjects.
“Quality: refers to the authority or credibility that information has to a person” (pp. 334-335). Quality serves as a threshold to judge whether information is worth attention.
“Timeliness: refers to the temporal suitability or appropriateness of information to a person” (pp. 334-335). This aspect of information avoidance recognises “that people may reject information when it is not immediately useful” (p. 339).
Several of these characteristics—particularly those related to information and those concerning both information and the individual—mirror components of the concept of information quality outlined in the BIP theoretical-methodological framework, such as credibility, relevance, utility, accuracy, and truthfulness (Barometer for Information Quality, 2024). This highlights information avoidance as a way of managing the constant flow of information we receive and the speed at which it is transmitted; however, contrary to what the term might suggest, it does not mean that people abstain from receiving information. Hicks et al. (2025) also emphasise the role that an individual’s capacity to handle particular data, at a specific moment, plays in accessing and using that information.
References
Barómetro para a Qualidade da Informação. (2024). Avaliar a qualidade da informação: Referencial teórico-metodológico.
CECS. https://www.cecs.uminho.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ebook_barometro_publicar2-.pdf
Hicks, A., Mckenzie, P., Bronstein, J., Hyldegård, J. S., Ruthven, I., & Widén, G. (2025). 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, 76(1), 326-346.
