Abstract

The ways that humans acquire information is undergoing a fundamental change comparable to the introduction of Gutenberg’s printing press and broadcast systems. Using the literature and a growing body of empirical evidence, we describe a model of information acquisition that specifies the roles of education, salience, subject-matter literacy, and navigation skills in the decision to seek information. We refer to this model as a just-in-time information acquisition system. We focus on the acquisition of health information and science information separately and discuss the similarities and differences. We utilize a national U.S. survey to describe adult information acquisition behaviors empirically.

摘要

人类获取信息的方式正在发生根本性的变化，这与古腾堡印刷机和广播系统的引入相提并论。使用文献和越来越多的经验证据，我们描述了一种信息获取模型，该模型指定了教育，显着性，主题素养和导航技能在寻求信息的决策中的作用。我们将此模型称为即时信息获取系统。我们专注于分别获取健康信息和科学信息，并讨论其异同。我们利用美国的一项全国调查，以经验方式描述成人信息获取行为。