Discovered by chance: The role of incidental information acquisition in an ecological model of information use

The role of information which is incidentally or accidentally acquired has been neglected in the study of information-seeking behavior. The study reported in this article focused on "incidental information acquisition" as a key concept and investigated the information-seeking behavior of 202 older adults, aged 60 and over, from both metropolitan Melbourne and rural areas in the Australian state of Victoria. The approach to the study was ecological in the sense that a picture was built up of information seeking in the context of the lives of the people in the sample, both individually and collectively. A particular and unusual focus of the study was the role of telecommunications, especially the telephone, in information seeking. The implications for society's systems of information provision are discussed, together with ramifications of the finding that older people will be slower than other groups to accept computer-based sources of information for everyday life.