Technology: There has never been anything that gave us so much power. Simultaneously, there has never been anything that had such subtle power above us on an individual level.
New media is designed to capture our attention and time. As that business model is so lucrative and powerful, very smart people are paid crazy high wages to design apps and software to induce a certain behavioral outcome.
By design, they make us consume the ‘right’ things, think the ‘right’ things, and elect the ‘right’ (hopefully not right) parties.
Power! Direct and structural.
We won’t make technology disappear or eliminate it.
Humanity will never de-innovate.
So as long as we make use of its benefits (connection anywhere, no need for a compass, quick answers to big questions), we have to deal with its disadvantages (stress in our pockets, no sense of direction, no thoughtfulness).
The most scary among these: OVERWHELM.
The scary rise of global overwhelm
According to Google Trends, the term became increasingly popular since 2004 and reached the highest relative interest (worldwide) just in 2023.
The world feels it! I feel it.
As long as we have technology in our hands, vibrations, and notifications remind us of the new information technology holds for us every minute (which is, most often, of no significant value). Please, stay curious!
They trick us into self-made overwhelm: As we are instilled by fear of missing out on information (let’s coin it INFO-FOMO), we always feed ourselves with too much of it. We feed ourselves meaningless feeds. And mails.
What we miss then is not important information, but… oh, just life: We miss out on independent reflection, focus, positive emotions, and most importantly the information of our own thoughts.
We cannot listen to our inner voices as our brain capacity is already preoccupied: Error404, too busy processing all the external information.
The feeling of overwhelm leaves us empty, always seeking, lagging behind.
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How more information makes less information
The irony is, that by giving in to that INFO-FOMO, we consume more information, and are very likely to lose more information than ever before. We bring our brains dangerously close to maximum capacity.
We get worse at making sense of what we learn daily — because it is a massive load of extremely shallow information. This makes it harder to filter what’s relevant.
Now we have the dilemma: We act out of fear of missing out on information. We consume more information. However, this does not help us out of a state of fear.
Instead, what we get is a new fear: The fear of our brain stumbling and falling because we overworked it. We cannot process that amount of information!
I even assume that people know themselves less because we detach so much from our own thoughts that the majority in our heads is just headlines and posts we consume daily.
This is a clear lose-lose situation.
Extremely unsatisfying.
And unhealthy. (not for the balance sheets of big tech, but for us!)
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Overcoming overwhelm: Three simple advices
So the biggest power we can exert here is to detach.
Go on that lengthy walk without a phone.
Even if it’s scary.
Act against the habit of leaving your mind to algorithms.
We have to unlearn the constant alarm mode and the INFO-FOMO, or even information addiction, to end overwhelm.
As we are all technology users already, that structural system of technostress can only be combatted by individual systems.
Next to detaching from technology, I try to focus on output. Write in that diary, write that article, sing, do sports, make music. This frees your mind. Getting constant input does the opposite.
My most basic and powerful tool to combat overwhelm is a constant reminder to myself:
The information I am scared to miss mostly is of no value.
Every time, I pick up my phone to randomly check emails or apps, I delete some of my brain capacity for that day.
What is of much more value than random smartphone information is knowing my thoughts and reserving my brain capacity for the important things. ❤
And now let me go running my errands — without a smartphone.
…
How do you experience overwhelm? Let’s start a discussion in the comments!
Best, Jacky
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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