when is it too much?

How much connectivity is too much and how would we know when we've crossed that line? What standards do we have for human health and happiness that aren't unbearable restrictive and in and of themselves harmful to human health and happiness?

There seems to exist a strain of thought that posits we need more information, more context, in ever increasing quantities provided by technological mediums that annihilate time and space and transcend the boundaries of this puny flesh. That the ultimate goal of human life is to know it all, possibly all at once. But to reach that far infinity of knowledge would make us god and biologically speaking we don't seem designed to handle the rigors required of godhood.

So how much information do we try to process before this puny flesh rebels in an avalanche of crude emotional frustration? Where is the reasonable line between godhood and mortality?

I think, at this point, given the paucity of knowledge we have so far collected, trying to set that line fixedly would be folly. But it seems like something we should think about. At what point does trying to process too much information just make us miserable? Is processing information feeds endlessly truly necessary or even desirable in finding the balance between growth and happiness? At what point does our generally laudable tendency to push the limits of our capabilities pass beyond self edification and into realms of counterproductive misery?

To speak somewhat less obliquely, my basic thesis is that the human animal in human flesh is social (to varying degrees by individual), and requires semi-frequent contact with other humans to remain psychologically and physically healthy. Further, that while media can enhance these connections, a human being would not be fulfilled by social interactions mediated entirely by technology of various sorts. So there must exist a healthy balance somewhere between social media and first-person socializing. Also, we do not currently know where that line is or how to define it.

How does the social animal change when we go from socializing primarily in churches and schools to corporate structures with colleagues, and personal socialization greatly atrophied in favor of social media.  Which is not to say people don't socialize in churches and schools, but the latter seems increasingly plagued by tech enthusiasts who keep asking "well can't we just use tech to mediate that?" As if mediating all human interaction by a tech interface automatically makes it better.

The questions are: what does healthy socialization look like? How much does it vary by individual? What social interactions are worth NOT mediating via tech, no matter how challenging? How do we know that? What does it look like to rely on mediated social interaction too much? How do we know that? What kind of regular public meetings (religious services, classes, festivals) are important to maintain for the mental and emotional health of social primates such as ourselves? How do we make sure they continue to exist? How do we move forward technologically while still maintaining healthy communities for ourselves?

There are about 50 more questions to ask in this vein. The answers will vary depending on perspective, but I dearly wish we asked them more often.

My sense of modern society is that it is trying very hard to leave the limitations of these bodies behind, but also that as long as we keep waking up in them we will be unable to. i propose instead of imagining how we might become more godlike machines we first consider how we might become happier and healthier primates. What's the point of becoming machines if it won't make us happy? How can we know how to be happy then if we don't know how to be happy now?