–By Andrew W. Scott, CMA (AAMA), CPT
This is just a Blog post. The letters after my name are important to me because I worked hard to earn them. They will lend very little ethos to anything I say here. So go grab the salt and take a grain.
My entire life I’ve heard the same ridiculous idiom: “Stop overthinking things.” While there is undoubtedly a practical point buried somewhere inside that advice, I have little doubt it has also contributed to the broader war on thinking in which we now find ourselves engaged. Intellectualism and careful consideration have been dressed up in negative robes, possibly for the comfort of people for whom thinking seems an impossible chore.
A woman overwhelmed by multitasking and deadlines at work
So what is the difference between careful consideration and overthinking? Is there such a thing as too much research? I think the answer to this question lies in another popular idiom: “Quality over quantity.” But boy, oh boy, does this open an even bigger can of worms! Quality of information available to the average health enthusiast today is completely unknown. The internet has made it so very easy to apply false ethos to nearly any statement. We live in a society where we attach quotes to photographs of celebrities and call it a meme. But often, the statement under the photo wasn’t even made by that celebrity. Or, more commonly, that celebrity has no relevant expertise to support that statement. Should I give more credibility to a statement about discipline and drive simply because it is displayed under a photograph of someone who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2021?
Ultimately, what constitutes careful consideration is up to the individual during the research. For myself, I learned that overthinking is defined not by an abundance of thought but by a lack of action. There is an appropriate amount of time and thought that can be put into an issue. But the whole point of careful consideration is to eventually take action. If, at some point, I cannot take the information at hand and turn it into an action plan, then I failed to achieve Praxis. I am, above all else, a pragmatist when it comes to my own health. Thinking for thinking’s sake is great in fields like philosophy and debate. But a decision must eventually be made. Action must eventually be taken.
When I research information, I follow the scientific method. I start with a hopeful hypothesis, one that is based in an outcome I wish to be true. I don’t think any of us start from any place other than this. I want there to be an easy way to burn fat. I want to be able to burn fat and gain muscle at the same time. I want to have a quick and easy answer to appetite suppression without endangering my own health. So if I set forward in researching these issues, I will start in a place of healthy confirmation bias.
But isn’t confirmation bias an unhealthy thing? Well, it can be, but only if you are unaware of its existence and unwilling to change your mind in the face of new evidence. So one of my first information overload antidotes is purposefully researching the opposite side of an issue. For example, if I find a peptide that sounds too good to be true, I know for a fact that someone out there has published a paper showing that it is indeed too good to be true. Therefore, I must just as purposefully search out the opposition as I do the proposition. And this, my friends, is where the rabbit hole begins.
One of the most beautiful—and simultaneously devastating—aspects of the internet is what I call the Rabbit Hole Effect. When I was a researcher in college, “going down the rabbit hole” meant purposefully chasing the sources on each paper. I would check the bibliography sections and go read works of the sourced authors to see if their rhetoric passed the scratch test. After reading that paper, I would often chase those sources further yet—ad infinitum. But with the internet, we are often presented with either non-referenced material or poorly referenced material. A copy of a copy of a copy of a key rarely opens the door. And a blog post of an anecdotal statement of a subjective experiment done by a non-identified author once reported on the evening news does not empirical evidence make.
So, is too much information about health ever a problem? Yes, considering the amount of time, energy, and resources it takes to weed through the mire. If you dedicate yourself to using sound research techniques, and you purposefully prevent yourself from becoming married to an outcome, then more information, in and of itself, is unlikely to lead you astray. However, if it takes you 30 minutes to chase a piece of material back to its source only to find that it has no source other than itself, then what other choice would you have but to get more information to replace the faulty information?
Having eight sources is helpful if seven of them turn out to be unreliable.
Oh and by the way, this is just a blog. If you found this on the internet while working on either an academic paper or you were hoping to find a picture of Keanu Reeves at the bottom, I’m sorry to have disappointed you. But you were warned in advance.
–Drew, the Weapon
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