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Digital storm in the workplace: How OICN's first conference shed some light on Infobesity today

06 November 2023


The Mazars Tower in La Défense, Paris, hosted the first conference organised by the Observatory on Infobesity and Digital Collaboration (OICN) on 6th November 2023. This young organisation, created in 2022 and co-founded by Arthur Vison and Mathilde le Coz, aims to study the social, organisational, and environmental impacts of information overload, also known as Infobesity. The OICN quantifies, interprets, and anticipates the mutations occurring in the workplace thanks to data analysis of the usage of collaborative tools [1] For their first conference hosted simultaneously physically and online, the OICN had gathered 4 speakers, each specialised in an area of the digital realm. The quality of the presentations has matched the calibre of the studies provided by the organisation, which are downloadable from their website [2] in the form of a very digest infographic, free of charge.


The first speaker Suzy Canivenc, PhD in Communication and Information Sciences, spoke about teamwork in the digital era and gave an uncompromised overview of today’s state of play, saying that each novelty pretending to reduce the number of emails and communication exchanges was an illusion and that history proved that, if anything, each new tool would add a communication layer to the flow of data exchanged but the number of emails sent and received remains the same. This is true of Chat tools such as Slack, Teams or any video conference applications, promising communication flow reduction. Suzy Canivenc also reminded the public that if these tools are offering flexibility, there is a need to define common user practices and most of the time, this is not done. These new ways of working (also known as NWOW) are used at an increasingly intense pace as 56% of employees use on average 6 tools or applications to communicate in comparison to only 3 in 2021. This explosion of communication mediums generates a feeling of hyper-exposure and constant availability that creates uneasiness among co-workers. She called for a reduction of “the organisational millefeuille”, a term that was mentioned by all speakers during the conference, and she also encouraged teams to define their own rules rather than letting outsiders such as consultants dictate how they should work.

The second speaker was Alexandre Benzari, Ph.D. specialising in technostress and health at work. He reminded the audience that France had been the first country to legislate on a right to disconnect but he said a duty of disconnection would be more appropriate. He advised that one should use one tool after the other and try to refrain from multitasking which proves to generate fatigue and a cognitive overload. He shared that science now knows how to measure technostress in 3 parameters: role ambiguity, job insecurity and tech work overload [3] and that techno-addiction is also a phenomenon that should be monitored very carefully.



The third speaker was Aurélie Laborde, a researcher and Lecturer from the University of Bordeaux, author of various publications on digital incivilities, ordinary digital violence, and infobesity. She gave a thorough presentation pointing out organisational factors being the nest of this violence and that the correlation between communication overload and digital violence was clearly established. She said that this digital violence was no longer perceived as an event and caused suffering among co-workers. For instance, systemic absence of reply, public humiliation during a video conference as if the screen could minimise the impact of the disgrace, aggression, insult, or harassment are all forms of digital violence plaguing the workplace “silently”. She added that sometimes professional environments are euphemising those practices and diluting their intentionality. It is unfortunately known that the screen disinhibits and fosters violent online behaviours. Aurélie Laborde also said that distance generates ambiguity, yet, according to her, it is down to Management to take measures to resolve these situations.


Finally, Sebastien Demay, PhD in labour legislation and author of a thesis about digital workload and health at work talked about the impact on mental health and cognitive emotion. He identified 3 types of workloads: prescribed (by Management), real (the actual actions that it takes to accomplish it) and subjective (belonging to how it is felt by the employee). He also gave this alarming number of 15% of employees who would suffer from mental health issues linked to infobesity. In France, Sebastien Demay said that articles L 4121-1 and L4121-2 prescribe an obligation to train employees and prevent risks at work on infobesity. He also quoted a study from the World Health Organisation stating that each year 12 billion workdays are lost because of depression and anxiety [4]


Closing the conference, the audience had a chance to ask questions and online members started to share resources on the chat. The event has been much appreciated with many online viewers congratulating the OICN team for their endeavours and the quality of the presentations. A day that marks the beginning of a recurring gathering to share insights on our new ways of working in the digital realm.


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