The fast-paced world we dwell in, with its technological advancements, has made it possible for all of us to avail every atomic matter that happens around us, in just another mere click. This very fact has brought in a major trouble of a blurred boundary between being informed and being overwhelmed. This age, has, henceforth, provided people with a plethora of news and other information, crowding one’s mental spaces.
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This phenomenon, wherein a deluge of notifications and information causes suffocation of one’s mental arenas, can be termed as information overload. As it is expected, there are multiple consequences of this phenomenon, which is highly exclusive to our modern world and era.
Consequences:
Information overload can cause people to feel overwhelmed and suffocated, taking up a major chunk of their mental space. This colonization of their brain space can affect people’s attention and concentration skills. They can suffer from a lack of focus on academics and other matters that are critical to one’s life. Information overload can also become a gradual obstacle to people’s decision-making skills as well. With the bombarding of multiple and diverse information about a particular issue at one mere click, people can find it multiple times difficult to make up their own opinions and decisions about the same.
They might find it inevitable to cut off from all information-providing sources, such as news channels and social media platforms to, at the least, formulate a decision or opinion about a booming social issue. One may even face intrusive thoughts about the news and other information that constantly pop up on their devices despite them having nothing much to do with their lives. This may leave people highly saturated and rob them off their focus and adequate attentional skills. The psychological consequences, of exposing and absorbing dismal information from multiple sources, on quite a daily basis, can culminate in heightened levels of stress and even at times, anxiety.
Strategies
A. Informed selection of information
The deluge of information in the digital age can significantly affect our mental and emotional well-being. Selectivity—the deliberate decision to sift through, order, and interact with information that is pertinent to us—is the key to handling this deluge. This discernment calls on us to select our news sources carefully, determine how often we need updates, and keep an eye on how much time we spend on social media. We should ensure an accurate and adequate setup of healthy boundaries on our consumption of information from our digital arenas.
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One should be able to set up a curated list of platforms and channels that they would follow to keep themselves updated in life and ensure that the rapid bombarding of information from unnecessary resources is restrained to the maximum extent possible. This would provide a systematic method of analyzing the situations happening around us and would also have the potential of providing people time to keep up their personal serenity and mental well-being.
B. Technological sanitization
The goal of “technological hygiene” is to restrict the chances of brain clutter by upholding wholesome digital habits. It involves systematically and habitually assessing our digital usage habits and ensuring that we are accountable for our time on our devices. We are also responsible for ensuring that our activities online do not overwhelm us but rather help us in the betterment of our lives.
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One inevitable habit that one should embrace to reach these goals is to manage our notifications effectively. Disabling unnecessary notifications and alerts from our devices would significantly help us to reduce the mental and psychological strain that may occur to us. However, since most of our work and study materials are available online and require us to have a tab on them regularly, a certain period must be set apart to check on our important emails and other materials inevitable to our personal and professional lives.
Our digital interactions can be made more effective and less tiring by keeping files, emails, and apps organised. Additionally, keeping work and personal digital areas distinct can help with information compartmentalization and reduce carry-over stress.
C. A balanced diet on media
From a very young age, we were taught to ensure that our bodies are fed with a balanced diet that includes all important elements for maintaining our health. However, even when our world advanced in terms of its technological availability and accessibility, somebody forgot to teach us the pivotal role of a balanced media diet in maintaining mental well-being, just like how a balanced diet would aid our physical health.
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We feed our minds with knowledge in the same way that we feed our bodies with food. The goal of keeping a healthy media diet requires mindfulness. This entails being present, cognizant of every bit of information we take in, aware of its intended use and mindful of any potential emotional or psychological repercussions. We may make reading the news or browsing social media into a deliberate activity rather than a mindless pastime by practising mindful consumption. When your goal is clear, you can choose media more effectively, filtering out irrelevant content and improving your quality of life.
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Moreover, implementing mindfulness techniques like deep breathing or meditation might help us manage our resultant emotions. To conclude, navigating through these digital spaces and effective management of these noises is quite a very intrinsic process that requires greater levels of mindfulness and patience. Engaging with concerned professionals, limiting screen time and ensuring a systematic and informed online navigation can help us clear the masses of information in our mental spaces and accurately make sense of the same.
