Remaining Vigilant In The Era Of Information Overload

Caution fatigue, which was coined by Dr. Jacki Gollan, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science and a clinical psychologist at Northwestern University, can explain a lot of the recent behavior we have seen in the news. Gollan suggests that the initial burst of energy at the beginning of the pandemic helped us approach the public health guidelines optimistically. However, as we began to find difficulty in foreseeing the end, our energy banks became depleted, and we grew more relaxed about the steps we were taking to mitigate risk. Various behavioral insights can describe what may be causing caution fatigue.

Adapting to the threat

Threat habituation describes when we become less sensitive to threats after repeatedly encountering them. The idea is similar to that of fear-extinction training, a form of psychological training that aims to help individuals with anxiety by repeatedly exposing them to a fear-eliciting cue that is not accompanied by an aversive event. Eventually, the individual’s fear decreases as they learn that there is no real reason to be fearful.¹

In this context, the threat is the highly-contagious COVID-19 infection. Nowadays, we are presented with the danger of COVID-19 nearly everywhere — the news, conversations with friends and family, social media feeds, and even work. If we aren’t directly affected (or, rather, infected) by COVID-19 during this, then we may adapt to the threat and gradually become desensitized. Since our brains cannot handle persistently high levels of stress, it is simply more comfortable for us to ignore the threat and return to healthier levels of stress.