Information filtering and social behavior

Julien Smith posted a rather interesting blog entry about e-mail, social networks and the increasing tendency to get nothing done because of the need to check information via these information systems. It seems to me that information, along with becoming the new currency, via social networks, is also an addiction of sorts. People become addicted to the internet and to the information it can provide to the point that it impacts their lives negatively.

In general, there are ways to filter information that cut down significantly on the time you might otherwise put toward trying to sort all of that information. One technique I use involves created a dedicated email account for spam, one for family, and different ones for each business I’m focused on. By having these dedicated accounts, I know how often I need to check them, as well as what to do with the information that each account provides.

One of the challenges in social media is being able to filter the incoming information coming from many different people, while still being successfully social with those various people. I would argue that information filtering is a sophisticated form of successful social media behavior, but to pull it off you need to know what you are filtering out, and/or develop filters that still allow you to check information if needed.

Twitter provides an excellent form of social filtering with the Lists feature. You can choose not follow people, but still keep track of them by adding them to a list. The list can be checked whenever you want, but at the same time you don’t have to necessarily deal with the information streams of specific people unless you want to check the list. You can also create lists to filter your overall stream of information to select people that you follow. I’ve done this by creating a client list. Even though I follow all of my clients, it’s much easier to sort their signal from the noise by having a dedicated list I can check.

The list option isn’t available on Facebook or Linkedin, but there are other options people can use. Facebook allows you to hide updates from people. I use the hide feature to hide all of the games people play. In the case of Linkedin, I no longer check the status updates, which usually are Twitter spam from people, but instead have chosen to focus my efforts on the Groups and Q and A forums. By choosing to filter out a specific functionality, I am able to focus on the more relevant information that the side can provide.

What about you? How do you filter your information? What tools or techniques do you?