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To Fight Infomania, Get Comfortable With Missing Out
A helpful way to cut down on the noise
When President Biden took office earlier this year, many of us relished the end of four years… of compulsively refreshing our news apps. The headlines lost their lure, cable news saw a post-Trump ratings slump, and, even though Covid times continue, it felt like we got part of our brains back. But, in the past few weeks, that feeling has faded away for me.
I’ve begun stuffing my favorite reading app with long-form articles, yet I can’t get past the first paragraph of any of them. My inbox is drowning in newsletters that I usually rely on to streamline my information consumption — now I just skim them and save them for later. Each of the books stacked on my bedside table has a bookmark shoved in around page 11. I want to read, read, read. But I feel overwhelmed. I’m having trouble prioritizing. It’s time for me to admit that my infomania has roared back.
“Infomania” is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the compulsive desire to check or accumulate news and information, typically via mobile phone or computer.” I’ve struggled with it for years. It’s different from information overload in that with infomania, one might observe feeling overloaded, but then continue to consume information anyway. Here’s how one of my podcast listeners, Kelsey…
