JT's Weblog

Information Fatigue

published: October 20, 2025 estimate: 5 min read view-cnt: 0 views

There are many terms for this struggle: information explosion, tutorial hell, knowledge anxiety, imposter syndrome… all describing different aspects of being overwhelmed by the constant flow of information.

It’s the phenomenon where you can’t just keep watching technical videos on YouTube.
(assuming your main information source is videos from any platform)

Sometimes you just need to turn off your brain and watch cat videos or simply listen to some music.

Sometimes people get hyped about the shiny trending stuff, but the hype doesn’t last long for numerous reasons.

Meanwhile, some unicorn startup just got their venture capital fund and dropped an awesome software that every influencer is talking about, not to mention three more JS frameworks were released in the last month, and your tools used in the previous project are now officially outdated.

That’s pretty much how information fatigue sounds to a regular developer.

As an ordinary developer, what I can do is find the balance between learning new things and consolidating my knowledge.

This reminds me of the Chinese quote “學而不思則罔, 思而不學則殆” from “論語” which means
”To learn without reflection is wasteful; to reflect without learning is dangerous.” in English.
Shout out to my friend Alvis for sharing this quote when I was confused about my career 🤜🤛

Hence, it is wise to check all the information sources you used, and examine how you digest them, as well as what you feel about them. By understanding which sources drain me (high fatigue) versus energize me (low fatigue), I can make better choices about where to spend my attention.

Here are my honest reviews of all the quality sources I’ve dug into as an example—I encourage you to do the same audit with your own sources: (listed by media platform, ordered by frequency of use)
(p.s. I excluded Google Search and LLM intentionally, since they’re just the entry point)

Podcast (Fatigue Level: 1 out of 3)

This is the tranquil dojo for me to learn something new.

I always listen to podcasts while I’m commuting.

I feel like it takes less effort to learn things this way (i.e. no eyes needed), making it easier to sustain.

There were cases that I just want to listen to music or sing while commuting, otherwise, I seldom
skip my news feed.

Here are a few podcasters I’m into (in no particular order):

• Front-End-Fire: the lovely trio where they cover different types of news in the front end world
  • general big news, lightning news
  • new JS frameworks or tools
  • new web platform features
  • political affairs or dramas
• Syntax: two cool dudes that I wish I could follow their successful paths
  • I loved their energy and their attitude of life in general
  • that’s to say I learned things other than development in this podcast
• Changelog: the professional podcaster
  • they are dedicated news podcasters. (in comparison: Syntax makes development courses)
  • you can feel the vibe of the industry through the commercial and the guests
• .NET Rocks: the OG podcaster 💥💥 first episode was recorded in 2002 !!
  • they are the friendly wise elders we all need (I am in my 30s, btw)
  • time flies when they talk about the history of the IT industry (in a good way 🎷)
• Scott Hanselman: the well-rounded senior Microsoft developer with integrity you should follow
  • he proactively has conversations with people from different backgrounds
  • listening to those conversation is always delightful and enlightening

Videos (Fatigue Level: 3 out of 3)

This is probably the most addictive media for me to learn new things.

Easily hooked, and easily overwhelmed. Thus, I don’t use this as my main learning source nowadays.

However, it is still fun to watch people sharing what’s inside their Linux toolbox occasionally.

Fireship 100 Seconds Series

This one is so refreshing when it first came up in my feed.

I was surprised that a 100-second video could still be so informative.

The content was legit, smooth and humorous at the same time that I cannot imagine myself doing the same quality stuff.

Discord (Fatigue Level: 1 out of 3)

My take on Discord is that it’s the place to go when I can’t find an answer on the internet myself.

There were also discussion about how discord’s content is not searchable on the internet. I don’t have
a solution for this either.

For me, I only join the servers that I am passionate about. Hence, I don’t feel pressure playing around in it.

GitHub (Fatigue Level: 2 out of 3)

Topics and awesome are good place to discover things.

However, the amount of the information might be intimidating.

I cannot recall any pleasant memory of finding a hidden gem on GitHub.

It is probably the fact that all the numbers are public to everyone.

One may imagine that YouTube creators are prone to be bothered by the view numbers than the visitors.

Although I am mostly an open source user myself, I still find the numbers lead to anxiety to some degree.

The worries about not using the most legit tools, not being on the trends, afraid of being obsolete… etc.

Not to mention I also have a public GitHub page! 😨

Internet Tier List (Fatigue Level: 2 out of 3)

Tier lists are not for beginners to be honest. They’re just a convenient way for pros to exchange their opinions.

Knowing this fact might help people get rid of the anxiety hopefully.

Developer Blogs (Fatigue Level: 1 out of 3)

This is the material I’ve been neglecting because I don’t read that much.

Now that I’ve started my 30 days writing challenge, I realize I should engage more with other developers’ blogs for inspiration and perspective.

One can find developers’ blogs via uses tech, or simply google search or ask LLM. p.s. uses tech is mostly front-end centric bonus: daily dev is another amazing place to find various reading materials

Final Thoughts

Information fatigue is real, and it’s not going away.

But here’s what I’ve learned: it’s okay to not know everything.

The key is being intentional about your information diet—choose sources that match your learning style,
limit high-fatigue sources, and remember that learning without reflection is just noise.

We’re not in a race to consume the most content; we’re here to build things and grow sustainably as developers.