Humans are social. People need connections to others. This is how they learn, grow, and accomplish things both as individuals and groups. We understand ourselves in part by knowing about people and the world around us. Is there a limit to how much social activity and information people can take in and still live a good life?

Much of the debate over social media seems to focus on either the content of the information or the time spent with it that could be better used elsewhere. Both are concerns but they only hint at this question: can we handle all the information and social interactions?

For much of human history, people lived in relatively small communities. They lived in close proximity to family, often extended family and people of similar people groups. Traditions were important and technological progress was slower. There are examples in history of large urban centers but these are rare; small villages and towns were the more common social space.

The modern era and all that came with it – rationalism, industrialism, growing populations, urbanization, liberal democracies, pushing back against tradition, new technologies – expanded the number of social connections people could have. Big cities – 1 million-plus people – became common. People had more mobility. Access to other people and information expanded rapidly.

The Internet and social media is layered on top of these processes already underway and ongoing. Through these technologies, humans can connect with many more people and can access much more information. Something happens far away and we can know about it in minutes or seconds. Rather than relying on proximity for many of our social connections, we can interact with people and groups all over the place.

Perhaps humans can figure out how to deal with this all. How many would say they would want to go back to times where people primarily relied on people around them for relationships and information? People might figure out ways to shift their focus to all the options in front of them or better compartmentalize the big picture options and the world immediately around them. Or maybe not. We have options now that most humans never had – we can find out a lot and we can interact with or find out about almost anyone we would like – and we will see how we come to grips with them.