The Perils of the All-You-Can-Eat Digital Buffet:
How Information Overload Is Impacting Your Mind
When I was a kid, I loved going to the Western Sizzlin’. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet with an epic salad bar. There were so many options, and I’d want them all because, back then, salad was just a vehicle for Ranch.
“Just a little bit of each one,” I’d tell myself, as the mountain on my plate steadily grew. While vegetables are good for you and all, no one needs that much salad, I promise. And no matter how full I’d inevitably be after cleaning my plate, I’d still go back for ice cream.
And then… I’d feel sick.
Today, we live in a veritable all-you-can-eat digital buffet, and we are consuming so much that we’re making ourselves ill.
We are connected to the internet almost every waking moment. We have literally any piece of knowledge we could want available at our fingertips, and such massive quantities of digital content exist for our amusement that I can’t even fathom it.
There’s. Just. So. Much.
And more isn’t always better.
Not when it comes to food, and not when it comes to stimfo. (That’s my new term for stimulation and information. Let’s make it happen, people!)
The Effects of a Constantly Stimulated Mind
Like drinking from a fire hydrant, there’s so much stimfo bombarding us that we’re mentally drowning in it, and it’s impacting the quality of our minds and our mental health in ways that I don’t think we fully appreciate.
The constant influx of stimfo is making your mind chaotic.
It’s fracturing your attention, which means your mind jumps from one topic to another, having difficulty landing in any one place for any length of time.
You’re more susceptible to distractions and are exhausted from trying to keep up. It’s like non-stop running on a mental hamster wheel.
The smorgasbord of stimfo is basically turning your mind into a feral fed-after-midnight gremlin.
Sugar Fiends
My nephew J is the coolest kid on the planet (sorry to all of you parents, aunts, and uncles out there. I’m sure yours is a close second). He is hilarious, easy-going, and just an absolute joy to be around.
Until he has ice cream late in the evening.
I watched him morph into this crazed little human, literally growling, running back and forth, and bursting at the seams with energy he couldn’t contain.
I stared, slack-jawed.
What is happening?
I’ve heard of a sugar high, but I hadn’t actually witnessed the Hulking out happen in real time.
Fast forward. We’re on vacation, staying in an Airbnb with a kitchen so narrow you could easily touch both walls simultaneously.
“Can we get ice cream? It won’t be like last time,” he assured me.
You’d think once would’ve been enough to learn this lesson. But, no, I had to get burned twice before I learned don’t touch a hot stove.
Twenty minutes later… he is literally climbing up the walls, laughing like a maniac.
Where am I going with this?
Your mind, that feral gremlin, is going to do the same thing. It wants the sugar—the stimfo—even though it knows too much isn’t good for it.
And if you keep giving it what it wants, it’s going to keep being amped up, bouncing off the walls, and crawling out of its skin.
Afterwards, as with sugar, all of that stimfo will leave a mental residue that just makes your headspace feel kind of gross.
Information Overload
As an adult, I steer clear of all-you-can-eat buffets and all-inclusive anythings because, despite knowing I’ll regret it afterwards, I just can’t trust myself not to overdo it.
I hadn’t really applied guardrails to digital consumption in the same way, though, until recently, because, honestly, I didn’t think I needed to.
Sure, I limit mindless scrolling (and highly encourage you to do the same).
We all know that some stimfo is brain rot, the mental equivalent of junk food, and that taking a break makes our brains feel better.
But what about the more “nutritious” stimfo?
As a voracious reader, I generally have 3 – 5 books going at once. Some I read read and some I listen to (get out of here with that “audiobooks don’t count” nonsense).
I have a Reading List with hundreds of titles on it. I’m pretty sure if I did nothing but read for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t come close to finishing it.
And that’s just books.
It doesn’t take into account the skills I want to learn, the talks I want to hear, and the infinite videos of people falling down that I want to deny laughing at.
Until recently, this desire-meets-access resulted in me consuming stimfo pretty much all the time I wasn’t involved in deep focus work like writing.
Cooking? I’m listening. Walking? Listening. Getting ready in the morning? Cleaning? Sitting in a waiting room? Lying in bed before falling asleep? Reading, watching, or listening.
My brain, coincidentally, has felt more cluttered, pressured, and busy than I like it to be.
Ironically, a couple of the books* I read recently made me seriously rethink my relationship with stimfo, and I’ve made some behavioral changes that are having a noticeable impact on how my mind feels.
Digital Detox Experiments
I am increasingly convinced that we all need some digital detoxing. Intermittent mental fasting, if you will.
Personally, I’ve been experimenting with—GASP! The horror!—leaving my phone in another room while I brute force my mind to do some deep focus work for a period of time.
25 minutes. 60 minutes. 90. I haven’t found a specific time frame that seems to be the key, but with all, once I get started and into the task, it doesn’t seem to matter. At the end of any stretch of sustained mental effort without distraction, my brain feels better.
It’s like going to the gym. Even if it’s a slog. Even if I don’t want to be there and hate every minute of the workout, I always feel better after.
The other thing I’m playing with is taking breaks from stimfo. That is, taking some mental quiet time.
I am more regularly going on walks or doing other routine physical tasks without listening to anything or talking on the phone. You know what happens? Mind wandering and boredom… which open the door for creativity.
Creativity has nowhere to grow if every bit of mental space is filled with stimfo.
These experiments haven’t necessarily been easy. Like most of us, I have deeply rooted productivity beliefs, and I’ve had to do some adjusting there.
Rather than buying into the idea that I should be reading or learning all of the time, or I’m wasting precious moments, I now know, based on my own experience, that my mind needs a break from stimfo in order to work optimally.
For bonus points, get this…. sometimes I put these two together and… GO FOR A WALK WITHOUT EVEN TAKING MY PHONE.
I know. Crazy.
But humans have done it for millennia. It’s fine. I promise.
In fact, it’s refreshing.
An Experiment for You
Time for a little heart-to-heart, dear friend.
Does your mind feel scattered, cluttered, chaotic, negative, or otherwise psychologically icky?
And, be honest, have you been gorging at the all-you-can-eat digital buffet?
No judgment here. I get it. The struggle is real.
But let me ask you—and I want you to notice what your mind automatically tells you right now—would you be willing to try one of those same experiments?
Will you leave your phone in the other room and do one task without distraction or multitasking?
Will you do something without watching or listening to stimfo, testing out just a little bit of quiet time?
Aren’t you curious to know what it’ll feel like?
Quieting Your Mind
Now, I asked you to notice what your mind said just there. I’m betting it was some version of “no,” “don’t,” or “you can’t.”
To really run these experiments, you’re going to have to be prepared for your mind, the feral gremlin that it is, to wild out before it settles down.
It’s like riding out a sugar craving or not scratching an itchy mosquito bite. It might be uncomfortable, even intense, at first, but it’ll pass if you let it.
A lot of people are actually quite anxious about being away from their phone and even more so about being alone with their thoughts.
That’s part of what drives the incessant digital consumption.
As is the case with any fear, though, if you face it, it will subside.
On the other side of this fear lies a quiet, calm mind. Join me over there, if you dare.
* Two books I highly recommend: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Well worth the time!
“We live in a culture that is constantly amping us up with stress and stimulation.”
Are you ready to live a bolder, happier life?
Subscribe to The Way I See It monthly newsletter to get science-backed insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your inbox.