The Eroded Subject: Human Bandwidth Collapse in an Overloaded System

The Eroded Subject: Human Bandwidth Collapse in an Overloaded System theorizes human erosion as a structural condition produced by contemporary infrastructures that demand more cognitive, emotional, and interpretive labor than individuals can sustainably supply. The essay introduces three interlocking mechanisms — the eroded subject, cognitive bandwidth collapse, and ambient erosion — to explain why people appear disengaged, inconsistent, or absent across digital, institutional, and social environments. Rather than framing silence or low engagement as apathy, the work positions these patterns as diagnostic signals of systemic overload and infrastructural strain. By reframing human withdrawal as depletion rather than disinterest, the essay provides a conceptual framework for interpreting modern engagement patterns as artifacts of collapsing institutional stability, platform acceleration, and continuous crisis cycles. This contribution expands the SignalRupture canon by offering a structural explanation for bandwidth collapse and its role as a precursor to rupture.