Learning and Cognitive Overload

— 664 words — 4 min

At university I am and always was annoyed that I had to juggle five or six different subjects at the same time. Six lectures mean

1

Combine this with an 20 hour part-time job, time spend commuting, getting some exercise, and the spare time to actually practice new skills is very low.

I always felt that this is too much to handle for me in the way that I like to approach learning about new topics myself. I am deliberate, methodical; I like to be precise and nuanced. So what exactly do I mean by too much?

And why does it feel that way? What’s an alternative?

The exams went mostly excellent because, well, they are not structured in a way that tests your understanding or learning of a subject. They are structured so that they are easy to grade. Vomit information on the paper that you previously hammered into your brain. Then the professor (or his employees) can just check your answers. Right. Right. Wrong.

I just stumbled upon a YouTube video called How To Learn Any Skill So Fast It Feels Illegal. Yeah, yeah, I know, catchy title. But he explaines why I always felt that way: because of Cognitive Overload.

Too much information in a to brief a time period leads to theory overload. My brain is unable to keep up connecting the new information to already existing ones. And thinking about all these different topics leads to cognitive overload, which often leads to passive learning, too. I think it is very easy to get into the passive learning trap at university. Think back and try to remember what you really remember from each of your courses. Do you even remember all of your courses? I surely don’t. I often felt that I didn’t learn a thing in a whole semester even though the exams showed good results.

Hence, what I mean by too much to handle is that I cannot spend the time and effort on a topic that I would like to spend on that topic. There are too many other things going on.

What to do about it?

Balance new theory with practice. For instance, when learning about programming concepts write actual software that uses this concept.

My take aways from the video are basically these:

  1. Too few theory leads to aimless practice and slow improvement.
  2. Too much theory leads to information overload and passive learning.

The right balance will lead to optimal skill growth as Justin Sung calls it.

His rule of thumb: for every hour of theory, we should do five hours of practice.

Obviously, this rule really depends on the complexity of the task or the new information. A rephrased, perhaps better rule may be: monitor how quickly you can form new habits. When we don’t need to actively think about specific information, it turned into a habit and frees up cognitive resources for new information.

So when did we form a new habit? Justin gives the following guide:

When you can feel that things are becoming easier and faster, without compromising your accuracy, and your consistency.

So when you’re getting faster without you trying to be become faster.

At university I’m not sure what I could do about that. Change the education system in general I assume (towards being more exploratory instead of high school-like). To leave and learn on the job always works if you have that possibility (and the job and what you want to learn overlaps). On a more serious note, I think learning at your own pace at university is an option while also not being succumbed to the capitalistic needs of a company. Don’t follow the curriculum too closely, take detours, and take fewer courses per semester (I think three may be good).

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