You probably know this feeling. In our modern technological world, it’s easy to consume more and more. And I don’t mean only purchases, but in this particular case: Information. There is always more articles to read. Always more videos to watch. New movies, TV shows, books, anime. Too many notifications. Too many posts on social media. It’s just too much.

I don’t think our brains are made for this amount of input. I feel like I’m already kind of protecting myself from information overload, but it still feels like too much.

Recently, I’m finding myself spending more and more time on Reddit, in particular. I think Reddit is a great platform, I really do. But it’s also kind of like the internet itself: There are good and bad parts, and there is way more information than a person could ever take in. It’s also addicting, especially if you find your niche where your interests are. My problem are not the funny cat videos or the memes, but rather things that I’m really into and that I want to know more about.

Right now, it’s mostly Apple stuff, as you might have guessed. These new M1 Macs are very exciting, and since they just got released, there is more information about them by the minute (well, it calmed down a little bit). But do I really need to see it all? Isn’t it enough that I have my few podcasts which I listen to anyway, and who will do a great job summarizing the main points? I think one part of it is that I kind of want to get into the space myself. That’s why I spent some effort last week writing about Apple Silicon and the event. And the result is definitely that I do know a ton about these things, probably more than anyone should ever know if it isn’t your job to know. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but I’m just not clear if it is what I want.

What I’ve been thinking about is to try an information detox. Maybe one week with as little input as possible. Since I’m barely leaving my house anyway, it should be doable. The end goal, however, should be to find a good balance. Find sources that I enjoy and that don’t overwhelm me, and try to keep everything else out.

I also tend to be a digital hoarder. Found something interesting? Immediately save it somewhere to read later. I have lists and lists of things I want to look into. But I never do. Instead of spending my free moments either enjoying the moment itself, or at least dealing with this older stuff that has been waiting for me, I consume more. It’s never going to have an end.

I still had some vacation days left for this year, so today I decided to take off three days next week. This means that I’ll have five days in a row to tackle some bigger thing. I recently started decluttering some possessions, and I think I should spend at least one of those days with that. But I’m also thinking about going through everything that I hoarded digitally and force myself to make a decision: Is this something that is worth keeping, that I’m going to look at? What’s my strategy so that I actually do it?

What do you think? Do you have this problem? I know this is something that I’m doing to myself. I could just as well let everything go because it doesn’t really matter anyway. But there’s always this fear of missing out. There was a reason I saved this link once. Anyway, you know what I mean.