How information overload is new for the human brain and affects us adversely

Aren’t we all addicted to our phones? We are constantly bombarded with news, current events, blogs, videos, and information that we might not even need in our whole lives. Technology has made our lives easier. Is our brain ready to process the contact information overload?

Let’s jump into a time machine and travel 500 years back. Believe it or not, the fastest communication systems were pigeons or humans who would race on horse or on foot to carry messages from one place to another. Men would be lost at sea for months before they would know where they had landed. If something was happening in one part of the world, it would take us days before the news would reach us. We were not constantly in touch with other human beings. This time may have been ideal.

The human brain had evolved to process information at a certain speed. Even the most intelligent minds focused on one area of the study, while their minds didn’t bother about the rest of it. Not sure if it is a rumor but Mark Zuckerberg is believed to choose grey T-shirts to conserve his brainpower i.e. opting for grey over picking out clothes would save his brain energy to make important decisions. What exactly is the purpose of this activity? Eliminating options or limiting them, so the brain does not focus on unnecessary areas.

We have two eyes and yet we see one object as our brain processes the images and takes us a while to understand what we see. It is out of habit that we ignore 90% of what is before our eyes and focus on new or interesting things. Due to irresponsible journalism, there are tons of articles and blogs available that are mere opinions and not a factual description of what happened.

The human brain is not evolved to handle such an information overload. We start to focus on everything or try to make our opinion on every little matter, our brain will grow selective and focus on what is in front of it instead of what is important. Many humans take a vacation with digital detox as they want to disconnect from contact information overload and rewire their brains.