Infobesity: How to protect your mental health in a hyperconnected world

Information is everywhere on the web. Over time, true exhaustion can be felt due to this constant exposure, both in personal and professional settings. In this context, recognizing the risks and adopting certain habits can help maintain good mental health.

Infobesity: What Is It?

The term "infobesity" is a portmanteau that combines "information" and "obesity." It's used when the amount of information an individual receives exceeds their ability to process it. Two main levels are affected:

Cognitive, impacting concentration and memory capabilities.
Emotional, leading to mental overload.

While infobesity was theorized in the early 1960s by economist Bertram Myron Gross, the term itself emerged in 1993. American journalist David Schenk, author of the book Data Smog (Harper Collins, 1997), referred to this information overload as "overload" to describe documented informational overload.

53%

of French people say they suffer from information fatigue. 38% report suffering from it "a lot."

Source: "The French and Information Fatigue: Changes & Tensions in Our Relationship to Information" - ObSoCo, Arte & Fondation Jean Jaurès

The term therefore refers to an information overload that can become pathological. When an individual suffers from it, both physically and mentally, it can be considered a disease: cognitive saturation syndrome, stress, and fatigue that can lead to exhaustion. An over-informed person may end up suffering from depression and burnout (professional exhaustion syndrome).

An Overload of Information

The proliferation of information and communication tools is accompanied by an abundance of information and demands. The hyperconnected individual, faced with the mass of information also known as "noise" or "information cloud," can become paralyzed when it comes to making decisions.

There's also a risk of misinformation or disinformation due to the degradation of information quality. Indeed, beyond a certain amount of information, it becomes difficult to distinguish between good and bad information (fake news).

Regardless of population or age group, hyperconnectivity and overexposure to information do not guarantee the ability to be informed without difficulty or consequences. This is especially true for the hyperconnected youth who, in this merciless digital universe of "Super Size News," seem to suffer the most. Without safeguards, without information hygiene, without concrete media education.
Source: "The French and Information Fatigue: Changes & Tensions in Our Relationship to Information" - ObSoCo, Arte & Fondation Jean Jaurès

How Does Infobesity Impact Mental Health?

Infobesity affects those living in a society where information abounds and promotes immediacy, spontaneity, speed, and efficiency.

The media and social networks are not unrelated to this phenomenon. News repeats systematically: texts, images, audiovisual documents appear in loops, multiplying across digital platforms. Data is then shared, commented on, and relayed.

However, media publications often turn out to be anxiety-inducing, as they consecutively cover serious events and news stories, which are then disseminated on social networks and massively shared by content creators or influencers.

Finally, in a society where everything becomes urgent, relational issues arise, especially due to the overuse of messaging and the near-constant checking of smartphones. The term phubbing, a combination of snubbing (ignoring) and phone, refers to someone interacting with their smartphone instead of paying attention to the person addressing them. This can deteriorate the quality of interpersonal relationships.

The Private Space Affected

When someone is overwhelmed by an excess of information, it can disrupt their decision-making processes. The fear of risk increases, and it becomes very difficult to prioritize and organize the received data. More time is spent gathering information than acting on it: researching news, browsing fashion and decor sites, searching for travel opportunities... which don't necessarily materialize.

Moreover, when connection becomes constant, sleep quality is degraded. Sleep becomes fragmented and disturbed by the suppression of melatonin (the sleep hormone) caused by the blue light emitted by our smartphones.

At a time when intellectual and emotional activity should be decreasing, networks, the internet, or emails generate cognitive excitement that is detrimental to sleep. This tension hinders the slowdown necessary for sleep and is exacerbated by the "sentinel effect" caused by keeping phones on at night.
Source: INSV (National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance)

Focus on the Professional Space

The professional space is particularly affected by the phenomenon of infobesity: the multiplication of emails, messages, documents, agendas...

The expression "communication mille-feuille" (as used by researcher Suzy Canivenc) refers to the shift from one piece of information to another, to exchanges systematically carried out by email, which disrupts and consequently diminishes the quality of ongoing work.

84%

of employees check their work emails outside of working hours.

Source: The Pet Peeves of Workplace Communication in 2023 - LiveCareer

Many workers, plagued by blurring, remain permanently connected: the line between personal life and professional time becomes blurred. Work overload becomes normalized, time management is no longer efficient, and attention and responsiveness are impaired. Such exhaustion can lead to burnout (professional exhaustion syndrome). This is followed in the professional space by constant anxiety and a sense of frustration, inefficiency, and guilt.

144 emails

handled on average by French employees each week

Source: Annual Report (2023) - OICN (Observatory of Infobesity and Digital Collaboration)

What Does the Law Say About Professional Infobesity?

The right to disconnect was incorporated into the Labor Code in 2016 (Law No. 2016-1088 of August 8, 2016, relating to work, the modernization of social dialogue, and the securing of career paths). The legislation requires:

The methods for the employee to fully exercise their right to disconnect and the implementation by the company of mechanisms to regulate the use of digital tools, to ensure respect for rest and vacation periods as well as personal and family life.
Law No. 2016-1088 of August 8, 2016 - Article 55

This allows employees to no longer be available to their employer outside of working hours, protecting their rest time. Finally, the Labor Law / El Khomri Law of January 1, 2017, specifically emphasizes the right to disconnect.

Information Governance: A Plural Solution

Several solutions can be implemented in both private and professional spaces:

In the private space, better information management necessarily involves education and media awareness. This essentially means, in addition to taking a certain distance from the media, better utilizing information channels. Because scrolling (continuously scrolling through content) on one's smartphone is often a purely passive activity. However, better use, or even partial disconnection from information, allows for smarter connectivity and a healthier relationship with information.

In a professional context, it also involves raising employee awareness: absolute knowledge and complete understanding of information are impossible to achieve. Then, in advance, determine the information they need and plan ahead what this data will bring in terms of market knowledge. Thus anticipated and organized, the collected information becomes more "digestible." The Eisenhower matrix, which prioritizes tasks by distinguishing between what is urgent and what is important, can be a useful tool throughout this process.

What Concrete Solutions Are Available for Information Overload?

Abandon the idea of exhaustiveness. Since it's consciously impossible to see and process everything, it's recommended to limit information sources.
Carefully select relevant apps and social networks, determine and prioritize what is urgent, and adopt a structured information processing approach.
Schedule times for disconnection.
Stop valuing multi-tasking ("multi-task work") at the corporate culture level.
Consider curation: a content curator gathers important information to retain only what is relevant, analyzes it, associates it with other information, and organizes it. Some examples: Scoop.it, Netvibes, or Feedly (where you can add Les Enovateurs).
Favor face-to-face interactions and reintroduce in-person dialogue.

These recommendations can, for the most part, if not work entirely, at least be adapted to both private and professional settings. It essentially involves questioning the meaning and relationship to information in general, as the phenomenon of infobesity has now surpassed a singular categorization to become a real public health issue.