How Information Overload Destroys Your Brain

when was the last time you simply turned everything off left all the distractions behind and stayed alone with your own self information in the modern world is absolutely everywhere you've got thousands of Tik Tok videos Available to You millions of YouTube videos countless number of Instagram posts millions of books you can read online and countless number of podcasts to listen to tons of entertaining movies and TV shows to watch it's almost impossible possible to escape we have been trapped in this constant cycle of information we consume it almost all the time watching something while eating listening to something while studying cleaning the house and simultaneously listening to a podcast even going to the restroom taking our phone to stimulate us even there we're all addicts scared to miss out on something this information flow never stops our brain gets so overloaded that we cannot think clearly nor focus on any usually perceived pered as boring but necessary task I struggled to begin writing this video because my thoughts were just all over the place when we constantly bombard ourselves with new information even if it's very educational we take the time from our brain to sort everything into the right places and as a result lose our creativity it is much harder to come up with new ideas when your mind doesn't have any time to think creativity is something I talk about a lot as I truly believe that is essential for the future progress of our society it is not that we're losing our capacity to be creative instead we're just not giving ourselves any time to be creative we leave no time to our minds so it can marinate all the subconscious ideas that are being formed we are the most creative when we're not receiving any new information when we are at peace simply wondering about the world it is a popular fact that great ideas usually come to people in the shower where they're not distracted finding how perhaps a shower you once took will turn out to be one of the most productive times in your life and idea may arise that will change everything creativity that it speak when we fall deep into our minds that's why Da Vinci used to stare at his artworks for hours not doing anything when you're doing nothing your brain is actually working really hard to sort all the information you've recently received into the right place most of us know that consuming incredibly large amounts of information has a negative effect on our lives but we still don't stop people worldwide use their screens for an average of 6 hours and 58 minutes daily and the daily screen time has increased by nearly 50 minutes per day since 2013 the average American consumes nearly 34 GB of information a day information overload isn't something fully new to our Sy Society beginning with the invention of the printing press in the 15th century Scholars and scientists have predicted that each new technological advance that made information more widely available would produce an overwhelming flood that would be impossible to manage imagine if people in the 15th century began to struggle with the amount of information available to them how much we struggle now when we can read almost any book in history online at any time we want constantly bombarded by far more information than we can ever truly process decreases our concentration acts negatively on our ability to remember things and eventually takes away our ability to be creative and make good decisions in Neuroscience there's something known as working memory it is a cognitive system with limited capacity that can hold information temporarily it is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision- making and ultimately our Behavior our working memory can hold no more than 10 items at a time by largely exceeding the limit of what our working memory can store we erode the efficiency and quality of our cognitive function if you continue to overload your brain by making it store too much information in working memory the brain loses its processing power further by overloading the circuits non-stop we lose the important periods of inactivity as we discussed earlier times of doing nothing receiving no information that facilitate op Optimum function of our brain when we keep the brain too busy it doesn't get the rest it needs we pay by suffering a deficit in both short and long-term memory as communication between the two is disrupted by overactivity but choosing to constantly swim in Seas of new information you sacrifice your peace and creativity not only do you struggle to focus on a single problem truly concentrate but you also harm your memory and working capacity you don't always need to indulge in new information it will not make you more productive and it will not increase your levels of happiness fomo or fear of missing out largely controls the way we live and it also influences us to try to indulge in as much information as possible yes the human brain can process 11 million bits of information per second but our conscious Minds can only take in about 40 bits the processing of all the information you're constantly receiving by your subconscious can make you mentally exhausted information offload has been suspected to cause sleep disorder anxiety and reduced focus when your brain can't properly process all the information you feed into it it releases cortisol and enters a state of stress I personally love multitasking but while making this video all my hopes of it being a productive process were completely destroyed we all would love to be more productive I mean who doesn't want it to be able to do more in less time that's when we turn to multitasking in hopes of being more productive but multitasking is not at all in most cases it is just a blind illusion of productivity the best thing to do is minimize interruptions and work on one complex task at a time here I'm talking specifically about complex tasks that require a lot of your attention not washing dishes or cleaning the house of course in these situations you can easily multitask Earl Miller and you're a scientist at MIT states that our brains are not wired to multitask well when people think they're multitasking they're actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly and every time they do so there's a cognitive cost in doing so you believe you're getting a lot done but it actually makes you less efficient multitasking is information overload it increases stress and causes mental exhaustion by over stimulating your brain trying to focus on one complex task and simultanously being distracted by outside circumstances can reduce your effective IQ or in other words decrease the quality of your work shifting your attention and keeping it on a single task requires the same brain nutrients fast shifts in our attention that happen when we multitask causes the brain to burn through this fuel fast so that we feel mentally exhausted after only a short period of time if you can defeat fomo and separate yourself from the constant flow of new information most people are stuck in you will gain a giant advantage against anyone else you need to be able to stay alone with your own thoughts and properly focus on the task in front of you it was a pleasure to create this video and I wish you a great day

Channel: Mindful

Views: 628,546

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Id: wBJpd16b4Ww

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2023