As mentioned in our previous post ‘How Cognitive Overload Can Influence Our Lives: the Example of Poverty‘, we need to be extra careful when it comes to the usage of our limited cognitive capacity. And this is of course also quite true for well-off people too, in the particular in view of the increasing number of attention grabbing devices that surround us.
Cognitive capacity management may become the biggest hurdle in the Collaborative Age. We are gifted with marvelous mechanisms that decrease quickly cognitive load when we get used to some activities (such as driving or riding bikes for example), but it seems that modern life conspires to add constantly more devices that waste cognitive capacity.
It is almost an epidemics of sort. As it is understood that value lies in attention, more and more devices and gadgets compete for attention and thus cognitive capacity. Issues like accidents when driving and texting are direct illustrations of the problem. The world becomes more complex requiring also more difficult decisions and adaptation.
We all need to learn to protect our limited cognitive capacity; learn to relax and give it time to regenerate; and most importantly not multitask that often, which is a very perverse way of reaching our limits without realizing it.
Let’s launch a ‘protect my cognitive capacity’ movement!
