Alert Fatigue: The Attention Depletion Problem¶

Alert volume exceeding human processing capacity leads to ignored alerts, including critical ones. Every non-actionable alert degrades response to all alerts.

Tension Addressed¶

Coverage vs. Cost - attention is a finite resource that alerts consume

Recognizable As¶

Pager volume metrics; alerts with no runbook; alerts frequently snoozed; "we ignore that one"; alert:incident ratio far above 1:1

Canonical Sources¶

Google SRE Book, Chapter 11 (2016); "Alert Fatigue in Healthcare" research (medical parallel)

Transfers To¶

Healthcare (alarm fatigue), Security (false positive rates), Email management (inbox zero), Information overload (attention economics)

The only solution to alert fatigue is fewer, better alerts. Every alert must be actionable, represent real impact, and link to clear remediation steps.