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Info Series Part 3: News overload - keeping track and staying on course

In human development it was helpful for survival to pay special attention to movements and information in social contacts. We therefore react very quickly to everything that moves, to everything that has to do with social relationships and interactions, and to everything that appeals to us on an emotional level.

Compared to life in the Stone Age, however, in our everyday lives today we receive a significantly greater amount of information around the clock from a multitude of channels. As a result, we are better informed on the one hand, can increase our knowledge, can act more independently and control our destiny, can communicate and negotiate with people over great distances,....

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On the other hand, however, we sometimes find it difficult to maintain a focus because our attention wanders or, worried about missing something significant, we keep seeking more information. If we are not able to control and structure this flow of information, we can feel overwhelmed or confused by the amount or by conflicting information. Due to the evolutionary development, it is difficult to isolate ourselves from this in general, and it is not necessarily sensible.

Below you will find tips, grouped thematically, on how to handle a large number of messages from a wide variety of sources in a way that conserves resources.

Tips on how to handle a large number of messages in a resource-saving way:

Tips in a nutshell:

  1. Choose news and related media carefully
  2. Do a fact check: To what extent is the information trustworthy?
  3. Do a reality check: How am I affected by the news? What does it mean to me? What use is it to me?
  4. Keep a news diet: Daily updated and well filtered news is sufficient to be informed.
  5. Be aware of the emotions triggered by the information, try to endure them for a moment and thereby slow down an impulsive reaction.
  6. Take time windows in which you deal with new information and time windows that you keep free of it and use for other things.
  7. If you are researching a topic, make sure you stick to that topic and limit the time you spend on it. Especially on the Internet, it is easy to become overly occupied with topics or end up with completely different topics.

WE ARE HERE FOR YOU!

If you have any questions about the tips above, would like to know more exercises, or would like to talk about something else entirely, please email us: Email Psychological Student Counseling. We will call you back promptly for an initial phone conversation.

Your team of the Psychological Study Counseling

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