Member Voices: Too Much Information: Cognitive Overload in the Digital Information Era and How It’s Impacting Our Mental Health

Tuesday, May 7, 2024 @ 3:30pm CT / 6:30am AEDT

TMI, information overload, ‘infobesity’ – we live in an information, data and content rich world and our ancient brains are struggling to keep up with our daily consumption patterns.

Many modern humans follow hundreds of people on social media and peep into their lives. We receive messages and communication across dozens of channels, the news cycle rapidly changes and works hard to seize our attention. We’re commonly sleeping less while trying to do more in our 24-hour days. Then wondering why we’re waltzing with burn-out and regularly fatigued! This can especially be a challenge for female entrepreneurs whose work is often screen-based and requires women to do ‘all of the things’.

Is information overload driving some of the anxiety and ‘brain fog’ that many people feel? Is ‘digital dementia’ shifting our memory abilities? How can we support ourselves as small business owners when much of our work depends on us being online and interacting?

This 60-minute session will explore the contemporary challenge of ‘too much information’ on our mental wellbeing, especially that of female entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Key learning outcomes:
– Identify the sources and volume of information/misinformation we consume.
– Understand the characteristics of our ‘cognitive operating systems’, its limitations, and links to physical wellbeing.
– Explore how information overload is impacting our cognitive load, working memory and, potentially, levels of anxiety.
– Develop a flexible toolkit of strategies to support our cognitive functioning and digital wellbeing as business owners and entrepreneurs

Speaker: Jocelyn Brewer, Psychologist and Founder of Digital Nutrition

Jocelyn is a Sydney-based psychologist with a special interest in the psychology of technology and staying human in a digitally-saturated age. She created Digital Nutrition in 2013 as a positive framework for addressing digital wellbeing issues and our love-hate relationship with technology and in 2021 completed a Masters in Cyberpsychology at Sydney University. In addition to her small private psychology practice where she works with adolescents and adults, Jocelyn is a sought-after speaker, educator and media commentator on issues relating to cyberpsychology, digital wellbeing and mental health.

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