Overload

Hurot dakan baja yaot? As February is being ushered in, a lot of people are airing their pleas in social media sites to make this month a “better” one. They have enumerated the crisis in Iran, the eruption of Taal volcano, the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and the Corona virus lately. For them 2020 seems to be a bad year since the first month brought some sort of chaos to the world.

Yet, those people who are not “connected” seem to be living the way they have been doing. They are in a state of equilibrium. Some are even content… Is the collective fear being caused by over information?

The term “information overload” was coined by Bertram Gross, the Professor of Political Science at Hunter College, in his 1964 work – The Managing of Organizations. However, it was popularized by Alvin Toffler, the American writer and futurist, in his book “Future Shock” in 1970.

Gross defined information overload as follows:

“Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur.”

Since the coming of Industrial Revolution 4.0, people seem to rely on too much information they could get at the tip of their fingertips. They seem to make the internet as the overall source of information that some could not even work without it. Students and even some educators are stooped on their phones and laptops to be updated with the latest innovation and even gossip. Pre-school kids are allowed by their parents to be exposed on online games not realizing the mental stress they will have when the limit to absorb movements and visuals will be reached.

And there lies the danger: the capacity to decide, infer and make practical solutions will not be developed due to information overload.

Jill Monde of philnews.ph wrote: It is just the first month of a new year and it seems like things and circumstances are getting really alarming and disturbing already: Many dies, worldwide dilemma, outbreaks, natural phenomena, death of a legend, and among others. All of these made headlines and got many people worried and bothered. She then enumerated the following events:

1.    1. Australian Wildfires; 2. Iran-US Conflict; .3. Ukrainian Plane Crash: 4. Taal Eruption; 5. Novel Coronavirus Outbreak; 6. NBA Legend Kobe Bryant and Gigi’s Helicopter Crash

This information could create quite a stir in the mental foundation of those who are constantly monitoring such events in the macro scale. They will then concede to the insinuated message of the information that indeed, the month of January is catastrophic. 

They fail to consider that they are healthy, they have a job and humanity is doing good deeds to counter such negativity. The information muddled their positive disposition since they fail to go deeper to the inner person and reflect. They automatically react on the stimulus.

Andrea Brandt, PhD (2018) mentions that when you’re reactive, your feelings depend on external events outside your influence or control. Whether you have a good or bad day depends entirely on what happens to you and around you. The weather, what your boss says about your presentation, what mood your partner is in when you get home, how your favorite team played: All these outside things control your emotions; you don’t.

Reflective people are pro-active. They choose what to focus on and let go of worrying about things over which they have no influence. They take individual steps to make external factors be solved within their spheres of control.

Excessive use of smartphone paired with negative attitude and feeling of anxiety and dependency on gadgets may increase the risk of anxiety and depression (Rosen et al., 2013[18], Thomée et al., 2011[20]).

Information or cognitive overload can lead to indecisiveness, bad decisions and stress. Indecisiveness or analysis paralysis occurs when you’re “overwhelmed by too many choices, your brain mildly freezes and by default, [and] you passively wait and see.” Or you make a hasty decision because vital facts get wedged between trivial ones, and you consider credible and non-credible sources equally (Tartakovsky,2018).

So, why not regain our control over things which we cannot control and focus on the things that we can? We can lessen the time we spend exposing our minds to multiple information that our minds could sometimes do not accommodate?

As adults, we can detach ourselves and our children’s attention to the virtual world and focus on the real one. We can appreciate better the birds (which are still) on the trees, chirping.

Life will be easier to fathom.