Cognitive Overload

What is it?

Since the start of 2020 people have spent more and more time on their computers, from entertainment to work. Admit it, you know you’re included in this!

Every day when you log onto your computer for whatever reason, you are bombarded with new facts, celebrity news, computer updates, and more information than you could take in. This is what is called, “cognitive overload”. Simply put, cognitive overload is trying to take in too much at one time.

Long story short, our brains can’t handle as much as we think they can. There are three things that contribute to our understanding of information:

• Intrinsic – this refers to the difficulty level of the information
• Extraneous – refers to the parts of the information that are not directly relevant, like pictures or animations
• Germane – refers to our processing and understanding of the material. Without a good balance of these three, your brain experiences cognitive overload.

Do You Have the Symptoms?

Yes, symptoms. Cognitive overload is easy to spot if you look for these signs!

• Making simple mistakes – if you are making easily avoidable mistakes because you can’t seem to focus.
• Regularly forgetting important information – if you try to remember too much at one time, you won’t be able to recall it all!
• Inability to focus on a task – when your mind is trying to retain too many things at once, it’s hard to keep your focus just on one thing.

How Does Your Technology Contribute?

Do you ever pick up your phone to check the time, and ten minutes later you put it down and realize somehow you never checked the time at all?

You just experienced cognitive overload! Your phone has a million things happening all at once. You are distracted by texts, emails, and social media. Each one leading into their own rabbit hole of distraction.

How To Treat the Symptoms

There are a couple ways you can try to manage the information that is overwhelming your brain. One way is to ask questions. Slow down for a moment and focus on what you may not understand! Sometimes cognitive overload in the office can start because the person giving you a task assumes you already have a concept of the information. If you don’t, instead of just nodding and hoping you’ll figure it out later, just ask them! This will help you to receive the rest of the information and build it on a solid foundation of knowledge.

Another way is to take away personal distractions. If every time you open your laptop, a Facebook notification distracts you, log out! The culture of today makes it difficult to focus on something when you feel the need to see what your friends are doing via social media. The only way to eliminate the temptation is to take it away completely. This way you can open your laptop and get to work on what you really needed to get done.

The last way is to focus on one task at a time. A huge part of defeating cognitive overload is learning to prioritize. Try making a to do list, and after you do, don’t stress trying to plan every single thing into your day. What’s the first thing on the list? Focus on that! Instead of opening seven different tabs on your computer in an effort to multitask, just focus on that first thing. You may find that you get it done much faster than you expected to.

Cognitive overload is overwhelming and affects not only your work life, but your personal life as well. Having a crowded mind is straining and doesn’t allow you to do things to the best of your ability. So…take some time to prioritize, detox from technology, and slow down!