Disclaimer: This article is originally meant to be published in Nexus but, being me, I was thinking about how can I use Jenni AI to “enhance” the article. This is the version with Jenni AI enhancement.
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I know a lot is happening, but I don’t know what actually matters,” or “I think I have learned a lot but it seems the more I search additional information, I don’t think I know better”? Perhaps you have days when you are constantly occupied, yet feel strangely unmotivated to engage, even though you know you should. You might tell yourself, “I don’t need more input. Just give me space to think” or notice that although you are producing more work, you think your thinking is less deep and feel less satisfying. This phenomenon, often termed “time compression,” can lead to a pervasive sense of busyness that paradoxically hinders meaningful reflection and deep cognitive engagement (Menzies & Newson, 2007).
If these thoughts sound familiar, you are not alone and it is not a sign that you are not failing or unmotivated. Rather, it reflects a prevalent experience in contemporary knowledge work where the incessant flow of information and the pressure for constant productivity can paradoxically diminish the capacity for meaningful engagement and deep thought (Müller, 2017; Pirnajmuddin et al., 2021).
Many people today experience this quiet sense of overwhelm, especially in a world saturated with social media, digital platforms, online meetings, and now generative AI. Psychologists and researchers have coined several terms for these experiences, including information overload, cognitive overload, digital fatigue, attention fragmentation, cognitive saturation, and cognitive offloading (Alimour & Alrabeei, 2025; Luzzati et al., 2022). The terms may sound technical, but it describes very ordinary, human experiences that each of us experience in our daily lives.
Although these terms are related, they are not exactly the same. The differences are not only about their causes, but also about where it originates, how it shows up in daily life, and which part of the human system is being overloaded, whether it is information input, thinking capacity, attention, the body, or meaning-making. Knowing the difference makes a lot of difference. A nuanced understanding of these distinct phenomena is crucial for developing targeted interventions, particularly as the “paradexity” which is a blend of paradox and perplexity of the digital ecosystem exacerbates the signal-to-noise ratio, leading to diminished reflective capacity and heightened confusion (Karakaş et al., 2015).
Information overload happens when the amount of information coming in exceeds our ability to process or prioritise it(Ji, 2023). You might notice this when you read multiple posts, articles, or messages about the same topic and end up feeling less clear than when you started. The issue is not that you lack information. It is that there is too much of it arriving too quickly, without time to filter or reflect. The result is a lingering sense that everything feels important, yet nothing stands out as truly meaningful. You might feel this after attending a workshop or training session where you learn new things and at the same time, you need to make sense of it with the things that you already know. This phenomenon, often labeled information overload or infoglut, can hinder effective decision-making and learning by creating a cognitive burden that prevents deep processing and retention of new knowledge (Bawden & Robinson, 2020).
Cognitive overload goes a step deeper than information overload. It occurs when your working memory is overwhelmed and you cannot hold, organise, or integrate information effectively(“APA Dictionary of Psychology,” 2007; Wang et al., 2026). This might happen when you are typing notes while simultaneously discussing ideas in a meeting. Later, when you revisit your notes, you realise they don’t quite make sense or you cannot remember the logic behind them. You might ask yourself “What was I thinking when I wrote this down?”. Forgetting what was discussed earlier in a conversation is another common sign. The brain simply has limits, and when too many demands compete at once, thinking quality begins to suffer (Gruszka & Nȩcka, 2017; Wang et al., 2026).
This is why, in some active learning activities, students may appear highly engaged during discussions yet later report feeling confused or unable to recall what they learned. During these activities, students are often required to read unfamiliar material, process new concepts, listen to peers, articulate their own ideas, and negotiate meaning simultaneously. When too many cognitive demands occur at once, their working memory becomes overloaded. As a result, students may remember that they participated in the activity, but struggle to recall what was learned or how ideas were connected. In such cases, meaningful integration into long-term memory does not occur, even though the activity itself was interactive and engaging. This decline in the ability to intake and process knowledge ultimately leads to learners discarding information beyond their capacity to assimilate (Koudsia & Kirchner, 2024).
Now, with generative AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini AI or CoPilot, even though it is helpful to search information, summarise long articles and such, yet it can make us experience digital fatigue. Digital fatigue refers to the physical and emotional tiredness that comes from extended time in digital environments (Silvia et al., 2025; Zhang & Deng, 2025). Many people feel drained after long online meetings through WebEx, Zoom or Google Meet, even when they hardly speak. This exhaustion is not imaginary. Sustained screen use, constant alertness, and the subtle pressure to perform online place real demands on the nervous system. Over time, the body responds with fatigue, irritability, or a desire to withdraw (Fauville et al., 2023; Webb, 2021).
Attention fragmentation describes what happens when our focus is constantly interrupted. Checking messages while listening to a presentation, switching between tabs while reading, or responding to notifications mid-task all break concentration. Even brief interruptions make it difficult to think deeply. At the end of the day, you may feel busy yet oddly unfulfilled, as though your attention was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This constant toggling between tasks not only hinders deep cognitive processing but also incurs a significant “cognitive penalty” with each context switch, cumulatively increasing mental fatigue (Roy, 2025).
Cognitive saturation is something many professionals and academics recognise. It occurs when the mind has absorbed more ideas than it can integrate into understanding. After attending multiple talks, workshops, or training sessions, you may struggle to articulate what you have actually learned. The problem is not a lack of exposure but a lack of space to digest. At this point, the mind does not need more input. It needs time to digest information. This continuous influx of information without adequate processing time can lead to diminished cognitive capacities, affecting critical thinking and the ability to synthesize knowledge effectively (Yalçınalp et al., 2024).
Finally, there is cognitive offloading, which has become especially common with the rise of AI (Chirayath et al., 2025). This happens when we rely on tools to externalise thinking rather than support it (Grinschgl et al., 2021). Asking AI to summarise articles we never read afterward, generating drafts we feel disconnected from, or producing more output with less sense of ownership are all examples. I admit I am guilty of this myself. Used thoughtfully, these tools can help us think better. Used excessively, they can slowly erode deep engagement.
These experiences rarely occur in isolation. They often appear together, forming a chain: too much information leads to cognitive overload, fragmented attention, digital fatigue, saturation, and eventually reliance on tools to cope (Alimour & Alrabeei, 2025; Wang et al., 2025). Recognising the differences helps us respond more wisely, not by doing more, but by creating space for reflection, rest, and meaning.
If any of this resonates with you, it does not mean you are falling behind. It may simply mean that your mind and body are responding, intelligently, to a world that moves faster than humans were ever designed to process. This inherent limitation in processing speed often leads to a state of continuous partial attention, where individuals attempt to juggle multiple information streams simultaneously, thereby diminishing the quality of their cognitive engagement and increasing susceptibility to errors (Shanmugasundaram & Tamilarasu, 2023). This constant demand for simultaneous processing, particularly in AI-driven environments, exacerbates cognitive load, hindering critical evaluation and self-reflection (Lahlou, 2025). This superficial reliance on AI-generated content, especially when accompanied by digital fatigue, can lead to passive learning, where students accept outputs without critical verification, thereby diminishing their capacity for deep learning and comprehensive understanding (Dong et al., 2025; Tian & Zhang, 2025).
References:
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