Our body needs nutrition to stay healthy, grow, and protect itself from various diseases. To perform these functions, a balanced and healthy diet is essential. This diet must contain all necessary nutrients in the right quantities and any imbalance between these components of the diet; leads to malnutrition. Nowadays, the increasing consumption of processed foods and the rising trend of dining out has led to an alarming increase in health problems; one of the most common being Obesity.
Just like our body requires proper nutrition, our mind also needs the right kind of nourishment. While the brain’s biological nutrition comes from food, its cognitive nutrition is derived from the information we consume—shaping our knowledge and wisdom. In today’s digital age, the overwhelming surge of information, especially from social media with its confirmation-biased and dopamine-stimulating content, has contributed to a condition we can call “Obesity of Mind.”
Much like biological obesity, mental obesity is caused by overconsumption—but of information instead of food. The rapid growth of social media use, particularly through smartphones; results in a “sense of loss” instead of fulfillment and escalate the sense of dissatisfaction. Many of us are driven by a fear of missing out, believing we’ll fall behind if we stay disconnected for too long.
This urge is rooted in the basic human instinct for social interaction. But in the modern age, we’re driven more by amusement than meaningful connection.
“Amusement harbingers our lives with such centripetal ferocity that we seek to pursue it in everything we do.”
This constant craving for amusement affects both our digital and physical lives. We lose touch with reality when we don’t get our daily dose of entertainment.
The relentless pursuit of information has shaped the belief that a person’s value lies in the quantity of what they know, rather than the depth of their understanding. This stands in stark contrast to Schopenhauer’s insight: “Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity.”
Our everyday conversations about weather, politics, or society are increasingly based on what we’ve seen on social media. As a result, people feel pressured to follow the trends on social media that is no longer a place for a healthy exchange of ideas but rather has turned into a “contest of content”. How much content can you create? How many views or followers do you have? And perhaps the most important of all; How much dollars you can make? These metrics now define our value, rather than the depth or originality of our thoughts.
Social media posts are no longer about creating meaningful content, they’re often meant to stimulate personal biases. In doing so, we become a commodity of the attention economy, trapped in a cycle of content consumption and shallow romantic consumerism.
Apart from the psychological impact, this unregulated information intake, with little or no mental nourishment, results in Obesity of Mind.
Just like physical obesity leads to immobility, mental obesity leads to cognitive immobility a state where we can’t or won’t consider alternative perspectives.
While there are numerous treatments for physical obesity—like exercise, diets, and medication, we lack any *structured method to prevent obesity of mind.
However, we can attempt to pursue a path or adopt an approach which may have the least negative consequences. Completely disconnecting from digital media isn’t practical anymore, since so much of our lives depends on it. What we need is a smart and innovative response. Here are two important strategies:
1. Diversify Your Content
It’s not easy to escape the trap of echo chambers and self-confirming news feeds. But exposing ourselves to different perspectives and new ideas adds value to our mental diet, just like diversification of diet is vital for maintaining a right balance of nutrients that supports physical health.
2. Practice Self-Regulation
This isn’t as hard as it seems. Go through your social media history for the past few days and view it as an outsider. What does it say about you? Does it reflect a healthy, informed, and curious mind? If not, let that awareness guide your future choices.
These two techniques are not exhaustive in any way but can have a positive effect on your next choice of digital consumption. Radical actions like completely cutting ourselves off from the digital world won’t help. Instead, mindful and intelligent use of technology will help us maintain “cognitive balance”, just like a healthy diet trims our bodies—thus avoiding Obesity of Mind.
Ertaan Siddiqui
“The writer is a regular columnist on social issues and can be reached at seer42.blog or via email at furian240@gmail.com.”