Digital Burnout And Attention Collapse: A Review of Cross Cultural Psychological Synthesis

Abstract

Digital hyperconnectivity has restructured human attention in ways that existing psychological frameworks only partially explain. This review adopts a comparative integrative design, synthesising Kaplan's Attention Restoration Theory (ART) with Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)  specifically the Trigunas, Chitta (mind-stuff), Prana (vital energy), and Tejas (mental fire)  using a functional equivalence method to align constructs across both traditions. A three-phase model of cognitive collapse is proposed. Phase I describes Rajasic hyper-arousal, wherein algorithmic variable reward schedules sustain dopamine activation and trap the Chitta in Vikshepa (mental scattering). Phase II identifies the depletion point, where chronic context switching exhausts Tejas and destroys Sattvic clarity, manifesting as compulsive doomscrolling and paralyzed executive inhibition. Phase III represents Tamasic inertia  a defensive neurological shutdown producing social indifference, reconceptualised not as moral failure but as resource failure, arising from the metabolic unaffordability of empathy in a depleted system. Abstinence-based digital detox is found to be structurally insufficient, as it removes the external stimulus without resolving internal Vrittis (mental fluctuations). Sustainable recovery requires a dual-channel protocol combining passive nature exposure to restore directed attention with active Pratyahara (sensory gating) and Dhyana (meditation) to replenish Prana. The review argues that the erosion of civic duty in digital populations is a direct consequence of attentional collapse, resolvable only through restoration of the attentional instrument itself.