Social Media And Overstimulation

Everything is so loud, there are so many colors, the light is so bright, everything is too much… If these are your thoughts, congratulations, you are overstimulated!

Overstimulation, also known as sensory overload, is when a person’s senses -mostly all at once- are stimulated with loads of information. When this happens, it is hard or nearly impossible to process the information that is coming in. This stimulation is mostly seen in people with ADD/ADHD; who are in the autism spectrum; have schizophrenia or other sensory processing disorders.

There could be many different types of triggers for overstimulation. Especially the time we live in causes so many people to experience it. Constantly using social media is one of the biggest triggers in today’s society. When you think about it, our attention span is gradually taken from us by the owners of the social media companies who push people to create short content so that they can remain content creators (and please accept that content creation is a job now and people make money and a living out of it). As users, we quickly adapted to the new concept of content and we became addicted to it. Even when you think about kids (gen alpha), since they are born into this they can’t live without it (especially if they grew up with caretakers who weren’t controlling their screen time). Now they can’t live without mobile phones. Even when they eat, they seek entertainment. When they start their education, they struggle to maintain focus in class. Most of them struggle with their attention span. 

As users of social media, it is our job to control what we are taking in. Not only does it cause overstimulation but also it causes misinformation. As a person who is sensitive to sensory triggers, taking in misinformation can cause bigger problems as it also triggers some parts of your mental state. 

As I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, I am in no position to give advice. My only advice is to stop using your phone as soon as you wake up and right before you fall asleep. If you struggle with severe overstimulation please consider seeking help from professionals.

*The cover image and the other images don't belong to me.