The problem
I don’t know about you, but my brain is getting fried and I’m losing my mind. Reason? The obsession with consuming information.
YouTube videos, documentaries, Twitter, Instagram reels. From one to another, sometimes for hours. This has to stop! I know it cognitively but I always fall into the same consumption cycles.
Some facts
Some facts and realisations I’ve got to document. They apply to me but I am using “you” to make it sound more general. I believe these issues could be troubling someone else too.
- Information is like a drug for the mind. The mind just wants to be occupied, to run away from the moment, and information is a solid excuse. It even feels productive.
- Most of the information we consume has no practical use.
- Information is being fed to us by the engagement economy. It’s seductive because it makes them money. The cat videos? F**k them, I’d rather pet a real cat.
- Most of the things that most of the companies feed us are bad for our health. Be it processed food, lifestyle trends, and in this case, digital content.
- Yes, information has made me a ‘knowledgeable person’ but at what cost? I think I know way too much about random stuff.
- Digital content is shrinking our attention span a lot! I am somehow just binge-watching YouTube videos instead of reading books.
- I absolutely love the content that I watch. 90% of what I watch is very cerebral. That’s the problem: I’m stuck with something that looks good but isn’t:
- High cognition (90%): Physics & Cosmology, Mathematics, Chess, Technology, History
- Low cognition (10%): Politics, Music, Sports, Cute animal videos, and finally, some cringe (Celebrity interviews, pop culture, and so on)
- Even the high cerebral content doesn’t serve me. I have watched hundreds of videos on Riemann Hypothesis, Zeta Functions, and Quantum Field Theory in last the few months itself. That was just infotainment rather than some real intellectual progress.
- With high cognition content, we are tricking our minds into believing that we’re doing something useful. It may be fine in limited amounts though.
- In some cases we’re living our fantasies through these videos. In my case, I am fantasizing being a Scientist (which has been the only one dream I had in my life). But that’s not healthy. I should rather read books: it will save me from screen exposure and dopamine addiction.
Some measures
Digital content is taking away our attention spans, brain power, and experiences of life. Here are some measures to counter it:
- Whenever you feel the need to watch something, question yourself. And when you finish watching one video, question yourself before starting the next.
- Why am I watching this?
- How will it serve me?
- Isn’t it enough for the day?
- Can I rather read a few pages of a book instead?
- Keep books by your bedside and on your table. And a diary. When an urge to scroll comes, try to understand it. And see if it’s just your mind playing tricks to be drugged by dopamine.
- Go outdoors as much as possible. In my city of Gurgaon, it’s tough. But, we got to do something!
Conclusion
Information overload is bad. It’s addictive. It’s consuming our lives. It’s reducing attention spans and keeping us hooked into endless cycles. We’ve got to take the power back from the corporates!
