We’re consuming more information than our brains can handle. In Your Stone AgeBrain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload, neurologist and author Richard E. Cytowic discusses how despite physical biology being adaptive, the human brain is not much different that what it was in the Stone Age — meaning that even in modern times, the brain still struggles to keep up with technology, and all the information that comes with it.

The science: Overloading the brain’s energy capacity leads to pulling the body away from homeostasis — the biological need to be internally stable — which in turn leads to stress, and then to distraction, and then to error. Cytowic isn’t the first to say it — screen time is largely responsible for disturbing homeostatic equilibrium in modern times, according to Live Science.

Enter smartphones. In 2011, before internet connectivity on our phones became widespread, Americans consumed five times the information they had 25 years prior. Today — now that everyone is carrying an entire world of information in their pockets — we bombard our brains with 34 gigabytes of information each day. That’s more than your laptop can handle in a week. And that’s just during your leisure time.

Eye-to-brain connections are swift and easy. It takes information one-tenth of a second to travel from the retina to the visual cortex in the brain, in comparison to ear-to-brain connections, which take longer before the brain can understand what is heard. Doom scrolling through social media apps is a perfect example of visual and informational overload.

It’s no coincidence that the brain’s attention span has dwindled. The human brain cannot keep up with the extensive screen exposure and the speed at which technology develops, leading attention spans to drop below eight seconds, according to Microsoft — even less than the benchmark for lack of focus: the goldfish. Alternating attention — switching from one thing to another repeatedly, not only from platform to platform, but within each platform thanks to shortform content — is taking a toll on our cognitive abilities.

The dangers of overloading: As we potentially hit the limit of our brains’ computational power, we will find ourselves experiencing foggy thinking, reduced focus, memory lapse, and thought blocking. And because our neurons are constantly rewiring, the constant interruption of focus will hamper our ability to reflect and think critically in the long run.

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