Our Ability to Process Information Is Reaching a Critical Limit
The result feels like a mental DDoS attack
BuzzFeed once called 2016 “Actually The Worst Year.” It didn’t hold the record for long. In six short months, 2020 has already delivered Australian wildfires, election controversies, the coronavirus pandemic, a massive increase to the surveillance state, the murder of yet more Black people at the hands of police, violent resistance to national protests in support of Black Lives Matter, and the list goes on.
It’s a lot. And our ability to process it all may be reaching a critical limit.
A growing body of research highlights the strain on our ability to read, understand, process, and take action on the flood of news with which we’re confronted. Some of the biggest events in 2020 have demanded more of our time, more direct action, and have been more emotionally taxing than we’re used to. The result feels like a mental DDoS attack that drags down our mental health, allows misinformation to thrive, and even makes the job of delivering news more difficult.
As information becomes more accessible, news cycles often struggle to keep one topic in focus for long. A political scandal on Monday that would have rocked the nation for weeks in decades past might be out of the news cycle by Tuesday now. This…
