CONCEPT
Semiotic Overload
Berardi's term for the condition in which the volume and velocity of semiotic input exceed the human organism's processing capacity — producing not more understanding but less, as the mind's capacity for discrimination collapses under the flood.
Semiotic overload is the predictable consequence of the accelerated semiosphere. When the volume of signs produced per unit of time exceeds the organism's capacity to process them, the result is not a proportional decrease in comprehension — it is a qualitative shift in how the mind processes input. Below the overload threshold, more information generally means more knowledge. Above the threshold, more information means less, because the mind's capacity for discrimination — for separating signal from noise, for identifying what matters amid the flood of what does not — is overwhelmed. The saturated mind does not think more clearly. It thinks more frantically, more superficially, more reactively. It processes at the surface because it cannot afford the time required for depth.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The mechanism is attentional. Attention is a finite biological resource. When semiotic input exceeds attentional capacity, the organism has three options: process some signals at the