Over the last several years, the acceleration of culture, technology, and politics has left me feeling pretty overwhelmed, and I’d wager you feel the same. If so, don’t worry – you’re in good company. Dozens of social indicators have reported increases in depression, anxiety, and economic distress (Half of Americans Feel Financially Adrift Amid Economic Uncertainty – NFCC), while consumer sentiment (U.S. Consumer Sentiment Slides to 3-Year Lows) and hope for the future continues to decline.
Taken together, it’s a bleak outlook for the present and the world we live in, but I want to argue that there’s more happening than simply “things getting worse.” I believe that the steady development of technology and media has fundamentally changed how we interact with new information and has pushed us beyond the carrying capacity of the human psyche.
To explain what I mean, take a trip with me to the distant past.
Sailing the Ocean of the Past
For most of human existence, individuals lived on an island of the present, surrounded by an ocean of the past (a metaphor I encountered in a book years ago, though I can’t recall which one). This meant that while you might see a neighbor in your village stub their toe or hear real-time gossip about last night’s campfire stories, any news from the outside world had to travel.
The way information moved introduced two significant limitations. I like to think of any media channel as a carrier wave. It has:
- Amplitude: the amount of information the medium can transmit, and
- Frequency: how often information can be transmitted
In medieval Europe, information was largely passed by word of mouth or laboriously transcribed onto scrolls. It could only travel by foot or horseback, meaning low amplitude, low frequency carrier waves.
A few examples help: if a farmer returned from a trip to the market in a nearby city, they had to remember the rumors they heard. Most details were forgotten or deemed unimportant. Then came the slow donkey-cart journey home, and perhaps a town square report the next day.
Or picture an emperor in ancient China issuing a decree. Beautiful calligraphy might record the message, which a rider would then carry across the countryside. The scroll could only hold so much (limiting amplitude), and the rider could only travel so fast (limiting frequency).
The result? Villages might only hear of a new monarch when unfamiliar coins began circulating. Major changes could take months or years to become common knowledge.
This created a localized “present” that was shared by your community, often along with shared language, religion, and culture. And for most of human civilization, this was the default condition.
The Great Leveling
Now, within this metaphor, it’s easy to predict what happened as we entered the 20th and 21st centuries. As media technologies advanced, we increased both the amplitude and frequency of our informational carrier waves. The telegraph and radio enabled messages to travel farther and faster than ever before.
Television expanded that further, with visual and emotional context. Instead of reading about political views in the weekly paper, you could watch two candidates debate live. This fundamentally changed our relationship to the information that could be accessed. For the first time, citizens expected to keep up with daily events.
Still, these media had constraints. A nightly news broadcast had time limits, so editor gatekeepers made decisions to limit coverage to only certain topics. And updates came just once or twice a day.
But then came the 1990s.
The internet, 24-hour cable news, and talk radio demolished those limits. Suddenly, your “present” expanded to cover the entire globe. Larger, faster waves brought you real-time access to everything, everywhere.
I first felt this personally on September 11, 2001. I had been sitting in my first period class, completely unaware that the first plane had struck the World Trade Center. As classed change, a friend approached me in tears: “The White House has been attacked.” Her family was in the military, and she feared a war would put them in danger. But I had no idea what she was talking about. There were no smartphones, no instant news access. By second period, inventive teachers had jury-rigged classroom TVs with foil and paperclips to pick up the local news. Most of our school watched live as the second plane hit, over a 1,000 miles away.
The amplitude and frequnecy of our carrier waves have grown nearly limitless, which is why today, it’s common to see live footage from war zones, disasters, or global events, all within minutes.
Returning to the island metaphor: the world has been leveled into one vast, global present. You no longer wait for news to arrive; you can see everything, everywhere, as it happens.
Real-time stock performance? Here’s a ticker. Global political news? Google can translate foreign headlines for you. A celebrity moment? There’s a live feed already trending.
This, I believe, is the root of our overwhelmed mental state. We weren’t designed to perceive the entire world in real time. Psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually, we’re struggling with what to do with our newfound omniscience. We feel obligated to act on what we know, but we may simply know too much.
To further complicate matters, each individual also sees a different version of the same “present”, depending on where you look, which may explain rising polarization and fragmented identities. You’re no longer in the same “reality bubble” as your neighbors. While you may follow climate crises or global poverty, someone else’s view might emphasize immigration or economic instability. You’re both seeing more than your ancestors ever dreamed of, but you’re not seeing the same things.
Scary enough. But what keeps me up at night is what comes next.
The Bottom of the Time Well
You know where this metaphor is headed.
With the rise of AI and fully digitized media, the amplitude and frequency of our information waves may soon become functionally limitless. Combine TikTok’s addictive scroll with AI personalization, and we’re facing an informational firehose unlike anything in human history.
What’s more, these waves won’t just be passively received, they’ll come at us. Soon, you may see YouTube videos generated entirely by AI for your specific interests. Podcasts, blog posts, articles — all made just for you. Tailored perfectly. Indistinguishable from human-made content.
And that level of personalization means these tools can also steer your understanding. When the system decides which articles to show you, or your AI-generated host “explains” why an event matters, you’re not just watching the news, you’re being guided toward a version of the future.
It may begin to feel like we’re at the bottom of a well, being force-fed the future in ultra-high-volume, high-frequency bursts.
Even worse? Competing AI ecosystems may present different futures to different people. You may not only disagree with your neighbor’s worldview, you may genuinely believe you’re each headed toward entirely separate tomorrows.
When Overwhelmed Becomes the Default
This is where I’d usually try to suggest how we can respond and offer some hopeful path forward. But this isn’t that kind of article.
I believe humanity’s reach has exceeded our grasp when it comes to processing the modern information environment. Most people don’t have the literacy, tools, or time to constantly curate and challenge their input. The result is a world that feels like it’s accelerating beyond our ability to understand.
My only hope is that we can harness the tools we’ve built (and those still to come) as instruments to improve human well-being.
Because, really — what else is it all for?