Do you need an information diet?
Maybe it’s time to slim down your content consumption
May was a very difficult month. Not just for me but for many Malaysians — at least on social media.
Personally, I spent much of that month in literal pain. A year of working from home with really bad ergonomics finally caught up with me. My neck and shoulder had seized up, causing me such pain that I didn't sleep well for the entire month.
Needless to say, it was a bad month to begin compulsive doomscrolling.
I became more active on social media during period to find out more information about the vaccination process.
Mindless scrolling accelerated. And then I was caught up in the frenzy over the Israel-Palestine conflict, then the terrible LRT Kelana Jaya line crash where hundreds were wounded, and then, the outrage that followed. Somehow, I managed to poke gender pronoun activists on Twitter at the same time. I must have scrolled and read hundreds of angry, hate-filled tweets in May.
After a couple of weeks I had it. Mentally exhausted, I deleted Twitter from my smartphone. Hopefully, for good this time.
This whole story illustrated the fact that taking in too much information can impact your mental health in a bad way. Maybe you’re bothered by it too and want a way out from the mindless consumption of information.
My latest essay, How’s your information diet?, is the result of months of research, so I hope it’ll give you an insight on how to overcome the deluge of information we’re facing today.
Meanwhile, vaccination, Hunger Games style
Initially, there was a lot of vaccine hesitancy over the AstraZeneca vaccine in Malaysia, so the government made it available on a “first come first served” basis. What did you know, apparently while some folks were turning down AstraZeneca, a lot of people wanted it. A lot.
Unfortunately, the website was buggy. I only succeeded after more than half an hour of trying. When I got a vaccination slot, I felt a weird mixture of happiness and guilt. Everyone in my family got it except my brother, who could not pass the website’s buggy protocols.
A question most Malaysians moaned in May: Why make it so difficult to get vaccinated??
Well, at least the vaccination process itself was pretty smooth:
Thanks for reading this far. See you soon!
Elizabeth