The amount of information and data that employees are confronted with every day has grown enormously in recent years. Globalization and digitization have led to a steady increase in the complexity of work and business processes. Everything that is up to date today may be outdated tomorrow. As a result, decision makers must constantly distinguish relevant and irrelevant information.
They are often supported by digital information systems. Modern organisations, companies and administrations use these systems, for example, when making business calculations, developing new products or drafting marketing concepts. But how do these tools affect the people who use them? And do these information systems make users “stupid” because the users are no longer challenged? On the contrary, say psychologists and information scientists at the University of Münster. It's the ability to forget things that allows people to act in the first place, and that applies to individuals as well as entire organizations.
A team of researchers simulated typical business processes in manufacturing companies in which people repeatedly had to decide how many company products to sell in different fictional countries. The results showed that the availability of a supporting information system not only led to better economic decisions, but also increased users' cognitive resources. Participants remember the details of their company's other products better than people in the control group, who made decisions without any system-assisted support and, as a result, had to retain more information in their memory. In addition, the participants who were able to use the information system reported that they experienced less stress when working on the complex tasks.
However, forgetting is not something that decision makers find easy. The researchers found that the technical reliability and quality of the information content available seemed essential to users' trust in information systems. The perceived competence and experience of those involved, such as developers and support staff, have also played an important role. “What we found surprising,” says the researcher, “was that trust in information systems was determined by a wide variety of influencing factors. Distrust, on the other hand, already arises with one problem, for example a one-off technical problem."
