Let’s see if this describes you:
You have a long day at work or with the kids. You’re stressed. You have a huge list of things to do and it’s causing you to feel completely overwhelmed. Stuck and frustrated, you decide to “veg” – relax by doing something mindless, which for most of us is scrolling social media on our phones.
You feel relaxed as you do it.
But, when you’re done, you still feel overwhelmed. You still feel exhausted. You’re just as stressed as before, if not more so.
Spending time “relaxing” is supposed to make us feel refreshed and ready to take on the day. Yet even though we spent time relaxing on our phones, we never seem to feel much better. If anything, we feel worse. Why?
All About Digital Overload
The answer may be due to something called “Digital Overload.”
One thing we need to understand about our brains is that they are designed to process *everything* that we see and do. Behind the scenes, are brains are trying to process, remember, and store every task, every activity, and every sense that we experienced during the day.
But there’s only so much that it is capable of processing, and one thing it is absolutely *not* capable of processing is 100 five-second videos, 1000 pictures, and 500 tweets. Our brains simply were not designed to be capable of processing that much media. You’re processing more faces, lighting, situations, jokes, etc., than any one person was meant to see.
While you’re watching it, your brain – which is overwhelmed at this point by the consumption of media – “shuts down.” That’s why you feel relaxed as you scroll your social posts, because it feels almost literally mindless as your brain chooses not to process that much information.
The problem is that, even though it feels relaxing, you’re overloading your brain with too much digital information – so much digital information that your brain is simply incapable of processing it all.
And it tries.
What happens when your brain is overloaded?
It starts to become stressed. It becomes more easily overwhelmed. It stops functioning properly. You essentially increase the odds of becoming burnt out, and finding it difficult to function and do what you need to do without feeling tired and upset.
This is digital overload. When a person spends significant time on social media, or scrolling anything that provides frequent short digital stimulation, your brain simply cannot process all of it and the result is that it is much easier to feel overwhelmed and suffer from burnout, even though the time on your phone feels relaxing and a chance to escape the world.
Struggling with Burnout? Talk to a Therapist
It’s so hard for so many of us to get off or our phones. But even reducing your time spent by a little bit can make a difference, and if you can cut social media out of your life completely (or at least reduce your scrolling time considerably and focus only on individual interactions), you can reduce your digital burnout risk and improve your mental health.
It may also help to start with a therapist. One of the reasons so many of us end up on our phones for so long is because we’re having trouble coping with the day, and that “Brain Turned Off” feeling can be the only quick escape that also eases that addiction to FOMO and technology that so many of us also have.
But if you address your stress and anxiety, you can reduce your reliance on phones, and ultimately reduce the digital overload, stress, and burnout that results from it. If you’d like to get help for your mental health, please reach out to me today. I am based in Phoenix but work remotely throughout Arizona, helping those that struggle with burnout and related issues.
