Information Overload — Running Out of Brain or One Brain is not Enough
Most of you reading my thought piece have an information-centric job that doubles as your browsing habit — you open Google Chrome (or your favourite browser) to search google (or Bing) for some information. Then you want to quickly check in on the reactions and comments on your latest tweet/reel/story, so you flip your phone for gratification.
Meanwhile, you have opened a few tabs on your browser related to the information you were finding, then decide to check in on your email, so you open a new tab. Want to check your bank? You open another tab. Thinking about buying your craving from the money you have or will have? Open a new tab and check out the store from the ad you saw on Facebook or Instagram. Before you know it you have plenty of tabs, and notice sluggishness in switching between tabs, loading the page, or even scrolling down. You also feel tired by this point.
The performance of your laptop (or desktop if you’re Chad or Boomer) incrementally slowing down is a reflection of the number of tabs you open. No brainer right? That’s exactly what is happening to many of us living a fast-paced life — juggling our career, family, hobbies, recreational activities, getaways, et cetera et cetera. From a fast Tesla to a slow mobile.
Running Out of Brain
Unlike your computer, which you can buff up with additional RAM, faster CPU, or OS performance clean-up, we can’t perform the same upgrades with our brain. Now I know someone’s going to shove some self-improvement book in my face or someone else’s face, or tell us ‘git gud’ far too many times. Git gud doesn’t address the big elephant in the room — we are running out of brain!
A CEO who can walk 24 hours non-stop, visit every holy place in the world, or engage in any other shenanigan then post it on social media, to get free likes from partners and employees may have the luxury to impart divine guidance to others about meritocracy from the balcony of a highly delegated lifestyle, with occasional bouts of heads-down crunches. Most ‘Knowledge-Workers’ making under $100k annually cannot afford to miss plenty of things. This includes entertainment, which de-stresses them.
The fast pace of growth and development in this world, mired with important time-sensitive global issues brings Knowledge-Workers to the doorstep of a new mountain; climbing from the previous mountain of ‘poverty’. Whether you are a software developer, a copywriter, a programme manager, a digital marketer, a person in sales of a tech company, an analyst, researcher, or anyone involved in a profession that requires you to watch ‘how-to’ YouTube videos or articles from Hubspot or other software blogs — you are a Knowledge-Worker.
Knowledge-Workers face a new challenge — competing with the increasing rate of demand to become Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger in order to keep pace with progress, or become obsolete, forgotten, and irrelevant. This may feel like a page out of the 20th century inscribed with ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work Sets You Free), make of it what you will — Suum Cuique.
Information Fatigue
Somewhere in the world, sits a researcher — alone in a room or library. Staring at a screen with more than 100 tabs. Just staring. Frozen in place. The clock is ticking, deadline inching closer, the expectation of their supervisor high, pegged to their promotion/nomination for the next level — very Dark Souls -esque (if you know, you know). Gurus like to call this frozen productivity ‘Writer’s Block’, supervisors like to call it laziness, bloggers depending on others to pay their bills like to call it ‘mental health issue’, while managers like to call it ‘Hey, can we chat?’ followed by a performance review email (like that’s doing any favours). But only the real pros — the scientists have a proper name for it ‘Information Fatigue’ aka burnout.
The caricature of the researcher isn’t an isolated case. Millions of researchers out there can attest to the experience as all too relatable. So can copywriters, freelancers, developers, and any Knowledge-Worker involved in ‘grunt-work’.
The Vastness Devours Us
Today a person is subjected to more new information in a day than a literate scribe or scholar during the Middle Ages (or a normal person a hundred years ago) in their entire life.
By 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally — that’s the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day!
Consuming the vast abundance of books (who reads those anyway?), videos, articles (who reads them fully anyway?), and other different kinds of information content — have become impossible to consume in their entirety. Not only that, retaining information, and its transformation into useful knowledge that can be transferred into the application has become such a challenge that there are Instagram posts on unoriginal pages about executing an idea. The cherry on top — staying updated with new information.
Semblance of the situation can be anecdotally attributed to Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt’s experience “die Weite Russlands verschlingt uns” (the vastness of Russia devours us). Or steering clear from taking sides in the current political climate, the way information sees it I’m not locked in here with you — you’re locked in here with me.
The Challenge
Succinctly put, the challenges surrounding information fatigue can be broken down categorically.
- Consumption — the way we read or view.
- Handling — the way we interact with multiple pieces of information.
- Storage — the way we remember.
- Retention — the way we continue to store.
- Update — the way we modify the information we already remember, keeping a log of history without mixing them up.
- Application — the way we use the information we remember/know.
Although there are technology developers flirting and experimenting with gizmos that feel like a page out of some Marvel movie.
At present, the demands of your life aren’t reducing anytime soon, leaving you burnt out every so often with information overload because one brain is not enough.
If you found the information here meaningful and enjoyed reading about it, join in on the discussion as I’m building a startup that makes Knowledge-Workers 10X more productive. Best way to reach me:
- comment under this piece,
- message: Linkedin or,
- email: zein.saeed.5@gmail.com
