The Missing Pieces Of A Puzzle

written by Gian Carla de Guzman

graphics by Deitro Dazo

With the pandemic persisting, our immersion with all things digital deepens. With the world— almost too literally—accessible at our fingertips, more things come to our senses and compete for our attention. Inevitably, we experience fatigue. Here, though, we cite sources on why this happens and what we can do to reduce this exhaustion.

Essentially, digital interactions are challenging roadblocks for the brain because of their demands and restrictions. Exposure to too much information or information overload is also related to social media fatigue.

In the simplest sense, our brain becomes exhausted from digital face-to-face interactions (e.g. Zoom) because it multitasks. We can treat everything that comes into our senses as one big puzzle. Our brain is looking for something, but it can’t find this missing piece from digital interactions. It looks for this missing piece while being too focused on excess, unfamiliar pieces of stimuli.

The “missing piece” pertains to the non-verbal cues, like gestures and expressions, that our brain can easily see and interpret during inperson conversations. In digital faceto-face interactions, our evolved effortless ability to read these cues are disrupted. Instead, our brain becomes concentrated on spoken words rather than non-verbal cues, which are barely visible due to the 16:9 cropping of our companion.

Set-ups with multiple panels of screens showing the participants also overload the brain and its central vision, as it is forced to take in various sights in one go. In this case, our brain tries to meaningfully interpret the environment, but finds this task hard because its focus is scattered. During such engagements, there is also a need to be mindful of the few available cues (i.e. words, eye contact) to keep track of social interactions. Overall, the brain becomes exhausted at the additional need to focus and put things together in an interaction setting so different from what it’s used to.

Video calls that we now do from our homes also opens us to more distractions. We have different home environments and circumstances that makes total focus seem like a far fetched dream.

Fatigue becomes persistent as we transition to online classes and digital interactions. With things competing for our attention at every click and tap, things can become overwhelming. Everything is online, so where else should we go? How can we help our brain fit pieces of a puzzle together at the face of what could be digital adversities?

Here are some pointers that could help us ease into our suddenly deepened immersion with technology:

Too much focus tires out the circuits of our brain, the body’s main engine. This impairs our decision-making and may drain our energy. “Unfocusing” lets our brain recall and process information, such as paragraphs of a long reading.

Like people, focus has different faces. For instance, stimming, or self-stimulatory behaviors like doodling, pacing, or fidgeting can actually help a classmate with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus better. Anyone can engage in stimming, so we should accept and understand these behaviors.

When overwhelmed, it is recommended to turn off your camera and/or microphone so that your brain takes in less information. Save some fuel for reading non-verbal cues.

Given our different circumstances and abilities, it is not always possible for everyone to remove all distractions. However, we can reduce the things competing for our attention. For example, we could block certain websites during certain hours to prevent distractions. The principle behind this is that you’re decreasing the information your brain needs to take in.

Whether it be with your family or peers, talking about feelings of distress helps you release, understand, and better organize your emotions.

This also applies to learning. If your subject does meet via video calls or group chats, interacting with classmates or professors can help you understand the lesson by learning from them or asking them questions.

The pandemic necessitated more online interactions, which could become an added stressor to students. However, we must know that these stressors did not come from nowhere. The mental health crisis during this pandemic is just a piece of a puzzle of systemic issues, whose gaps are filled in by other problems like accessibility, social standing, crisis action, and others. Ultimately, we must recognize that safe, accessible, and quality education- -one where everyone’s mental health is nurtured--can be only achieved by calling for proper medical solutions from the government.

#