The Psychology of your 20s - 194. Are our attention spans getting shorter?

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

So many of us are struggling to stay focused and concentrate in an environment of constant distraction and temptation and it's causing a lot of us to feel unproductive and undisciplined. In today's episode we break down why our attention spans seem to be rapidly declining, we discuss:  The Gold Fish myth The average attention span from 2004-2017  The impact of short form content The impact of COVID lockdowns Overstimulation and rising ADHD diagnoses  Attentional cycles and our circadian rhythm  Tips for regaining your focus + social media rules  Listen now to reclaim your focus and concentration and reverse your declining attention span.  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down,

and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the Outer. My Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice in selling, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian. Michael Mancini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available.

I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWA% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode, another topic, another deep dive as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Okay, there has been a trend that I've been noticing recently, both within myself, but also those around me, across social media, amongst my workmates, even from you guys, the listeners, that everybody is talking about. And that is our collective declining ability to concentrate and our ability to focus. So many of us in this day and age are struggling to stay on task, struggling to keep away from our phones and kind of push back against like the siren call of

TikTok and Instagram. One professor has even stated that our levels of inattention have reached an epidemic rate. That might sound a little bit extreme, but I think that it's something that all of us can relate to. I want you to seriously ask yourself the simple question of when was the last time you were able to spend a complete hour on a single task without getting distracted. For me, I think for most of us, we probably can't remember that time. It's pretty safe to assume that there has been a gradual decrease in our attention spans

going on for some years. A lot of us really started noticing it post-COVID and post-lockdown when a lot of us really did get quite engrossed in short form content on TikTok, when we lacked any structure to our days, when we were allowed to kind of follow any impulse that we had because there was nothing else to do. That has seemingly bled into where we are now. And the consequences of that time,

and I think a whole number of factors, is contributing to our inability to focus and concentrate for a sustained period of time. the area I think we notice it most is when it comes to those kind of activities that require us to be concentrated for some time. So I'm going to say more than an hour at least, but where there are little short-term consequences if we don't stay focused. So things like study or remote work where, yes, there are things that you need to get done, but you are in charge of your own timeline. And so you can get drawn into doom scrolling,

into Wikipedia deep dives, into TikTok, look up at the clock, realize that 30 minutes have gone by and, you know, having to kind of try and start all over again only to find yourself a few minutes later to draw them back into some other task or some other source of entertainment. I think that is the area where a lot of us are noticing this occurring. The other space is around daily planning and getting things done on a daily level. daily tasks, but also in conversations with others. I don't know if this is just something I've noticed amongst my friends that we've spoken about, but our conversations are becoming a lot more

quick and there is a lot more space and a lot more kind of like jumping around rather than like a continued sustained focus on one topic. So I asked you guys, how many of you had noticed a shift in your attention span in the last two, five years. 88% of you had noticed at least some difference in an area of your life and 60% of you noticed a huge difference within that. That was from almost 8,000 responses. So this is not like a small number. This isn't a small minority of the population.

And it shows that this impact on our ability. to focus and the impact that we're feeling on our attention spans is significantly burdening those of us in our 20s and those of us in younger generations. Think back to when we were, you know, in our early mid-teens. I remember that I could sit down and read a book for hours and the time would just fly by. I could focus on my homework for a solid chunk of time before I needed a break. I could watch TV and not kind of needs to be on my phone at the same time. I could have conversations and not be thinking about, you know, my to-do list and all the other things that I needed to get done. I think our attention spans are shrinking in very measurable and observable ways,

and it's valuable that we talk about it. So in today's episode, firstly, we're going to understand why, why is this happening? Do we only have our phones to blame? Or is it kind of a broader combination of burnout, of overstimulation, of repetitive workloads, of trying to do everything at once, and, you know, big media and marketing companies really leveraging what they know about our attention spans. But also, what is the impact? If you haven't already seen an impact for yourself, what is some of the psychology saying about what this means for us long term? And finally, is there a solution? I feel like that is quite a rhetorical question. Of course there is I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't have something that you could do about it.

So we're going to talk about it. And I also wanted to hear from you guys. You all wrote in some incredible responses about, you know, late-stage ADHD diagnoses, which are becoming so much more common. You spoke about screen times above nine or ten hours a day, deleting apps and then redownloading them later, missed deadlines, you know, late night spent compensating for all the distractions. There were so many valuable insights that came from you all, the listeners, and I want to share it all. So without further ado, I'm going to stop rambling. And let's discuss what it is

about our attention spans these days and why it seems harder than ever to stay focused. Let's get into it. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you

will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2% that's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people? I know what you're thinking. What? The hell does George Bush got to do a little count? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English.

Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line.

We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade. of my own experience in the middle health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase

that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth.

Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free, Our Heart Radio app.

Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.

I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap.

Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's quickly get up to speed on some of the basics of attention. We tend to think of attention as being only one thing, the ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous period of time without being distracted.

And it's something that's in our control. What we're talking about when we talk about a controlled, sustained period of focus is actually only one form of attention called sustained attention. We also have selective attention where there are multiple stimuli and things going on in the environment and we have to choose to focus on just one and tune in or filter out the other distractions. And then we have alternating attention. This is also known as multitasking where we switch back and forth between tasks that have different cognitive demands. So this might sound efficient, right?

You're writing your essay whilst also listening to a lecture or your teaching. texting and driving, that's the classic one. But study after study will tell you that when you're performing two or more tasks at once, especially ones that are cognitively demanding and splitting up your focus, this will actually lead to lower efficiency on both tasks. It makes us sloppier, it increases our stress, but also, I think I can speak from experience, it takes so much more time than if you just done each thing, you know, one after the other and consecutively. So that is alternating attention and the final kind of attention we have is divided attention. And this is very similar to alternating.

It basically highlights our ability to react to two or more different demands or things in our environment simultaneously. So this kind of attention, dividing attention, is just less cognitively demanding. it basically is your ability to watch TV whilst also eating. Normally the actions that we're doing are quite procedural. So of all these kinds of attention, the area where a lot of us are suffering is selective attention. Basically, our environment has a lot of stuff going on and we have to choose to only focus on one thing within that

in order to get shit done. I think most people without chronic attention issues or conditions or neurotypes like ADHD could likely focus fairly well if they were given a task in a quiet, empty room. That is where sustained attention really flourishes when we only have one thing to do, one thing to focus on, nothing else. But in a very modern world, these conditions, they are so rare. Our lives are filled to the brim with opportunities for distraction or competing

stimuli. And so we need to be able to filter all those other things out and prioritize what's in front of us. That is becoming a lot harder, leading to a greater reliance on alternating attention, switching back and forth from our phone to our computer, to our environment, to somebody talking, without limited success. Some people who are a lot more qualified than me have sought some answers and explanations to this problem of our diminishing selective and sustained attention. So there was a recent study in the UK done at King's College London and it found that about half of us adults think that our attention spans are getting shorter and that number is actually going to go up for people between the ages of 18 and 34.

66% of us in that age bracket, which I'm assuming is probably you, are noticing a change, a shift, and one that is noticeable. So there is like a common myth that has been swirling around that our attention spans are now so poor that they rival that of a goldfish. It might feel that way sometimes, but actually we're still very much winning that competition, but only by a little bit. And we know this based on a longitudinal study that is actually still going on now. So one of the leading researchers in this space, in the space of attention, is Dr. Gloria Mark, and she is a psychologist and a professor from the University of California, Irvine. Now, back in the early 2000s, whilst she was studying people's attentional rhythms, which we're

going to get back to a little bit later on, she started to notice that the people she was observing were really not doing too good at staying on track. when it came to the tasks that they were being asked to do. So she switched focus. She wanted to see how long most of us or the people that she had sampled for her studies could stay on a task or a project before moving along and whether that this was being impacted by new technologies. So at the time, it was kind of like phones but also computers.

It was really before like the social media craze. But because she started early, she was able to. to track our attention spans through these big societal shifts in our access to technology. So she started back in 2004. That's almost two decades. And what they would do at the very beginning was they would quite literally follow people around. They would shadow their participants for a day with stopwatchers. That was the best kind of technology they had available to them at the time.

And for every single activity that they did, they would record the start time and the stop time. So if you are on a screen working on a word doc, as soon as you pick up your phone to check your email, you stop doing the word doc activity and the timer for the email activity starts. As soon as you stop with your email and you go and look at TikTok, for example, the email activity stops, TikTok starts.

And they wanted to see how long people were spending on each different activity before they seemingly got bored and moved on to the next. Back in 2004, the average attention span was about two and a half minutes. Throughout the years, it's become even shorter. So around 2012, it was 75 seconds. And then in the last, you know, five, six years, that has almost halved again to where we are now, which is roughly 47 seconds. That's the average amount of time that we spend concentrating on a task before we shift focus.

And if that number seems quite impossibly small, there have been other studies that have since replicated the exact same finding within seconds. And again and again, around 47, 45 seconds is the median. If you want to test that for yourself, have a look at your phone pickup data in your settings. So I will out myself. I will go first. I looked at this earlier today. And yesterday, I picked up my phone around 235 times across a 15 hour period. That is 16 times an hour. So almost once every five minutes. Now, that's not exactly 47 seconds, but you've got to remember once every five minutes, but I'm probably spending a minute on it each time. I'm probably jumping between

different apps and then I'm coming back to the task, then I'm picking up the phone again. It is all kind of averaging out to a 40-second, you know, median amount of time that you can spend focused on one thing. I will say that this sounds alarming. A lot of researchers have noted that this is very much task-dependent. So if you are doing something really, engaging, you can really focus on that single thing for a while, compared to if you're sitting in on a task that is repetitive or unnecessary or boring, like a work meeting that you really don't feel like you need to be at, or a lecture where you're not really being given an opportunity to engage, especially if it's online, right? You're more prone to distraction in those cases because

you're not fully immersed or engaged in what you're doing. So in this way, the idea of an attention span is quite vague because I think most of us would find it hard to not wander off or seek out another form of entertainment when we're doing something that doesn't really require a lot of mental effort, right? If you're just staring at a screen for five minutes doing nothing, not really engaging your brain, of course there is going to come a time where you get bored and especially your brain gets bored and pushes you to seek out, you know, a tasty little spike of dopamine from something else in your environment. So I wanted to hear from you guys when it came to this.

For me, I'd really began to notice my declining focus back when I started full-time work, but especially when I would work from home, there was no accountability. There was no pressure of an exam or an assignment deadline at university. There was no one watching over my shoulder. And so that digital temptation of my phone was pretty easy. to fall into. This only got worse when I quit my full-time job and I started working exclusively for myself. Yes, I am, you know, super passionate about what I do and I have a lot of motivation to get stuff done. But when you are alone for eight hours a day, most days working in your house in the same environment,

there are a lot of opportunities for distraction, but it's also quite boring and understimulating to be doing the same thing. And so my brain kind of circles my environment and it circles my surroundings and it is always looking for something better to be doing that is going to feel more enjoyable. You know, I think it's a really good point to be made here, especially in our current work environments for a lot of us. You can't really sit down by yourself for eight, nine, ten hours a day, stare at a screen and not expect yourself to be distracted or, you know, believe that you could pay attention for that entire time. The human brain just doesn't work like that. So I wanted to hear from you guys and what you had to say about this.

Here is someone who articulated it quite well. Since COVID, my attention span has suffered greatly. I am such a routine person and I like to be productive. However, I somehow pick up my phone for a five minutes scroll and then an hour or two has been wasted away due to an unintentional brain-rotting death scroll. Then I feel ashamed and guilty, yet also paralyzed because I think that I've wasted the whole day and there I go, I have to start again tomorrow. That shame spiral this person mentioned is something we need to speak about,

because the more powerless and overwhelmed we feel, the more this object, our phone, controls us because it feels almost personified, right? like it's not this inanimate object. It is this thing that is staring back at us that can truly impact and influence our emotional state. And there is this constant tug of war between wanting to assert control over our phone, but feeling like it's constantly winning. And finding that we're constantly being pulled in by a notification, by a call, by a text, by an email, by just our brains, constant.

speaking out of the dopamine that we know our brain will provide. Here's another perspective that I think touches on something similar. I always need to have some reels slash videos playing in the background, or else I'll feel super bored and constantly distracted by my own thoughts that are telling me to not touch my phone. I've been trying to set 15-minute Instagram reminders, but it's not helping at all. I hate it so much.

It feels like I'm no longer living in the moment. I think that's what makes this so difficult. Again, is knowing how we want to live our lives, knowing what we could do with all that time, lamenting at how unproductive we are, and feeling powerless like our phones have kind of hijacked our previously functioning attentional systems, and no matter what we do, we cannot influence this behavioral pattern.

So I want to hear from one more person who had something to say on this as well. My attention span has been seriously impacted, ever since I graduated high school. Beginning in college, I've noticed a severe decline in my ability to focus, to pay attention, or stay motivated in school, work, family obligations, even in conversations with others, unless I am really interested in it. I've also seen an uptick in my issues with organisation, forgetfulness and procrastination, even with things that I really care about.

It's frustrated the people in my life who depend on me, or I end up having to ask them for help, like when I forget my keys for the sixth time and my roommate has to come home to let me in. That very functional impact is also something that needs to be acknowledged. It's like our brain has lost its executive functioning skills and it's kind of sabotaging us in a way. If you have a neurodevelopmental disorder like ADHD, it makes sense that you would have trouble paying attention or you would you know, struggle with your impulse control. But the global prevalence for ADHD is around 6 to 9.5%. Probably that is a lower end estimate when, you know, we start focusing on things like late stage diagnosis or the fact that there are very poor criteria for identifying women and girls,

especially women of color, people of color, and also some of the stigma towards neurodevelopmental disorders. That rate of prevalence might be a little bit higher, probably around 10%, but that doesn't really match up with the 80% of people who are experiencing this decline. Like, we can't all have ADHD, right? That would be a global phenomenon. So there must be another explanation. I will say if you do think that ADHD would provide the answers and is something that is likely that you have.

You should listen to episode 148 with Ellie Middleton. She is an ADHD and autism advocate, and she goes into this more. She talks a lot about late stage and late onset. and diagnosis when you're an adult and also some of the misconceptions. But for people without a diagnosis or who, you know, don't believe they have ADHD, there can be little explanation for why our attention spans are suffering. So I want to talk about some of the other reasons that we are struggling to focus and struggling to concentrate after this short break.

2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2% that's TWO

percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What? What the hell does George Bush got to do a little kill? Well, you can find out on The Look Back at It podcast. I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes.

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me,

your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness, this month. I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth,

or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way.

Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd, found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through. the same thing.

Greg, the lesbian, Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think when we are looking for an explanation for why our attention spans are so fucked, we need to focus on what some people see as the main culprit. Of course, it's our phones. That is often the first place that our mind goes to. Our phones and the apps that they contain provide so much temptation,

but also more stimulation than we can ever really get out of our everyday lives. in everyday moments, which is quite sad. But when you think about the design of social media apps, for example, or the way that you receive notifications for texts, for calls, for messages, it is all meant to achieve one thing. It is meant to keep us hooked, keep us online, and keep us using. So, as one author put it, screens and our phones in particular present a very unique mind field of distraction because they are providing us with a constant flow of information and stimulation. At its core, social media in particular was designed to capitalize on how we think. So it's little surprise that we're really drawn to it. It's not just the fact that there are algorithms

catching our attention. We have this sense that we have to respond. We have to check. We don't want to be left out and we know that if we go to our phones for entertainment, it will provide. In the same article, it goes on to explain that human brains, we know this already, they really crave novelty, they really like excitement, but also social connection. And all of these apps that we find ourselves addicted to, essentially, provide that in a very easily accessible format. And it also provides a sense of reward. So every time you go to your phone for that dopamine hit, you know that you will find something

that will satisfy you. You know that you will find a funny video. You know that you'll find some piece of gossip or a photo of a friend that makes you feel kind of clocked into this broader social network. So it keeps you coming back for more. The other factor and other component of this is that when you continuously give in to the temptation, which it's hard not to do, right? That's the whole point of this design.

Like, they want you to stay hooked. So when you do what they have essentially instructed you and manufactured you to do and you pause a task to check your phone, your brain also has to shift gears. It has to stop what you were previously doing and move on to this new task. And this process, this kind of jumping about, that negatively affects, affects the overall speed and quality of your work in the short term. And in the long term, the more you engage in task shifting, the more your brain wants to wander off and look for that new thing, because you have somewhat conditioned it into thinking, okay, when I've spent five minutes

on something, 10 minutes on something, I get a reward. I get to change focus. And you've become very much used to alternating your attention rather than sustaining your attention. In other words, to put it more simply, essentially what is happening here is that our brains are getting used to constant diversions and that these diversions have become habit. So that is why you don't even consciously think about it before you pick up your phone to check a message, before you pick up your phone to check social media, before you get up and go to the bathroom, even though you don't need to right? It's because this is a habit that has been kind of implanted in your brain. So even when you have a conscious intention to not do something, the procedural and automatic nature of our social media habits

in particular, of our reaching for distraction, all of those things, have become quite permanent and like we said, quite automatic. So let's hear from our listeners about this because somebody DM'd me and it was a really great example of how this happens. I have no attention span and I think that is largely due to short form content like TikTok. I've been desperately trying to put my phone down and increased time doing stuff I love that doesn't involve a screen. I deleted TikTok a couple of months ago, however my screen time is no better and I still find myself stuck on my phone. My uni work has suffered dramatically this last year. and I cannot for the life of me concentrate.

I haven't been able to finish any crochet projects, something that I love doing, and I can't finish books either. It's really frustrating, and I think my phone use is the biggest issue. I mean, right now I've been sat on it for an hour instead of getting dressed. Thank you so much for sharing.

I think the other factor in this is that going to our phones for entertainment is so easy. It's like the easiest alternative. It is the path of least resistance, because it is so effortless to be immediately carried away. Whereas reading or crochet projects like this person mentioned, they take more time to get into. They really require a bit of a setup.

You know, it's so much easier to go from working on a task that requires a lot of cognitive effort like at work or at uni and going to your phone where your brain can shut down versus having to completely shift to getting into a book, getting into a plot, getting into creating something. But what's fascinating to me is that the creation of something, the pursuit of something, the engagement with something like knowledge, like fiction, like a book, or something active, like making things,

it is more fulfilling in the long term, but it just takes more effort to start. And nowadays we have an easier alternative, right? Like we can just go and look at short form videos. We can just get our hit there. So the question that I kind of want to pose in response to that is, is it that we are more distractible? Is it that our attention spans are declining and it is our fault?

Or is it just that the world around us is more distracting? And that big media and marketing companies and apps are just like aggressively trying to fight for our attention and therefore leveraging what they know about our brain, which is that it likes novelty and newness. and that it doesn't like uncertainty or boredom, and it is taking that information, these companies, these designers, are taking what they know about our brains

and using it to essentially hijack our motivational and attentional systems for profit. Basically, like, is it our fault? Is it our fault that this is what is happening to so many of us? Or is it just that our brains are being flooded deliberately with dopamine from our phones? is it that we are increasingly working long hours at disengaging jobs in boring offices without sunlight? Is it that we are just constantly being fed very fast and quick and efficient

entertainment and few alternatives? So I want to focus on that explanation for a second. Let's kind of put our phones and let's put social media aside for a moment. I think it's gotten enough hate in this episode. I've given it enough heat. Let's look at some other elements or other explanations as to why our attention spans are failing us. Is the reason that we can't focus anymore because we are perhaps too stressed and too overwhelmed? That is another explanation. So in his book, Stolen Focus, author Joanne Hari,

who you might also know from his book Lost Connections, he talks about how information overload has been creeping into our lives and impairing our ability to pay attention for some time. back in the day we spent so much more time being present we had less to navigate and to do our jobs were a lot more based on problem solving or serving they were kind of forward facing they were you know very much like solution focused like there was something very tangible a problem that was very tangible that needed to be fixed or needed to be fulfilled and we would do that they were also a lot more social and a lot more collaborative, which is another thing that we need to make note of. Nowadays, it is so much simpler, but that also means it is so much more boring. It is more boring to move something around an Excel spreadsheet, to answer emails all day without connecting.

I think that back then it was simpler times, and now we are being asked to do so much more in a much more restrictive environment without really knowing our purpose. And our, you know, our work has become very firstly screen-based, but also repetitive, almost draining. And in an increasingly, I think, competitive and overworked generation, burnout is also pretty rampant because we are pushing ourselves to do more, to be more, in an environment and in a situation that isn't necessarily fulfilling. So I think it's no wonder that we have little band-haping.

with for everything going on in our lives. It is no wonder that we are constantly bouncing between things that grab our attention. We no longer have the mental resources to properly control our impulses or our concentration because of how worn down we are by burnout and then of course also by overstimulation. So this is another component of this book that we were talking about, stolen focus. he speaks about how our brains are just being pushed so much more environmental stimuli than ever before. And so it can't actually navigate all these things. It can't actually create a hierarchy or a list of what it needs to focus on first.

You know, I think about this when I was, I thought about this when I was in the city the other day in Sydney. And there are flashing billboards. There are crowded spaces, bright lights, heavy traffic. There is like loud music playing from every single song. store in supermarkets on the bus and then my phone is buzzing, there is so much more information to process at a rate that is faster than our brain has been able to adapt or evolve to. The demands have outstripped our brain's capacity for evolution. It's important to remember that we have a brain that was designed for thousands of years to exist

in nature, to exist in small groups, to feel the ground with our feet, to forage forbearer to problem solve, to think about survival, not just to be focused on a screen that is 30 centimeters from our face at all hours of the day. So that shift from really seeing the world more broadly engaging with the environment to engaging with something digital and very closed off and very like, I don't know, right in front of our face is like the best way I can kind of think about putting it. That shift has only really taken place in the last I would say generously like 50 years and 50 years that is only a generation of adaptation whereas there were thousands of generations and thousands of opportunities for evolution

and development and adaptation in our ancestors in the times that have come before that have created the brain that we have now for these new circumstances so you know thousands of years of doing things one way and then in the last 50 years suddenly everything has changed. When you zoom out and think about it in that way, our brains just genuinely cannot process what is happening in our environment based on what it was, you know, what has evolved and developed to do. Those things are too dissimilar. And so our attention span is essentially failing to keep up. We can't concentrate. We can't focus. It's not an isolated problem. It is not just a you problem or a me problem. It is a collective societal problem. So is that it? Do we kind of just leave it there and

watch our attention spans continue to decline until we are like goldfish? Obviously not. I have saved the best for last because as irreversible as the headlines and the articles make it sound, we can still fix our attention span and reverse some of the damage that is done by all of the above culprits, not just our phones, but our environment. So I have five practical tips for you today and no, they are not going to be things like get enough sleep or exercise because I think we probably are all aware of those. Instead, I have some actual scientific practices for you to implement, probably even starting today if you would like. We're going to begin with the first one. Find your peak focus times. Something that you will notice is that there are different points.

in the day where you are just more focused than others. Each of us actually has a specific period when we are more attuned and focused and it's easier to concentrate because sustained attention occurs in a rhythmic pattern. So there was a paper published in 2019 in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine and it found that our cognitive performance either peaks between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. 10 p.m. That doesn't mean that you can't still get things done outside of those times or in a time that doesn't necessarily align with your peak focus time, just that it might be harder. And this focus period is determined by our chronotypes, which is basically our body's natural inclination to be awake and asleep and alert or passive at different times during the day. And it is based on our

circadian rhythm. Put simply, our body works on a rhythmic kind of scale. It works on a cycle of alertness and kind of sleepiness, I guess, is the opposite of that. Some of us are early birds and some of us work really well during the night when the sun is down. And that all depends on how your circadian rhythm is set up. So I am definitely the latter. I can concentrate for much longer at nighttime. and I have found that that makes me a lot more productive.

Instead of trying to force myself to do like incredibly like cognitively overwhelming and like mentally strenuous tasks like first thing in the morning, I save them for after like 5pm or like at least after 2pm because I know that between the hours of like 9 and 12 that is the time when I need to do things that are a little bit more passive and that require a little bit less. effort because they're just easier and I'm not as alert during those times. For some people, though, I have a friend who works really well between like 5am and 10 a.m. It's about finding what works for you. And if you want to support your ability to concentrate, try and recognize and notice when it feels like you are most in a flow state without trying. So a flow state is a mental state in which we are completely focused in on a single task or activity and fully immersed. We feel both energized, but we're also enjoying the process. So that is like one of those examples of when you're just, you look up at the clock,

you realize that you've been working on your paper for like half an hour, or you've been fixing up an Excel deck or a PowerPoint deck for, you know, an hour and you haven't even realized, you've been editing something, you've been talking to somebody for that period of time and time is just going by super quickly because you are so focused and the reason behind your focus is both probably that you're engaged but most like you're also conducting this activity at a time when you are better able to concentrate so try and find those times and perform those heavy duty tasks during that period this really brings me to my next tip choose your high focus task

focus on them, but when you're done with them, stop. Don't try and keep forcing yourself to do things out of a productive window when you're really feeling yourself like wanting to take a break, wanting to go on your phone. It might sound counterintuitive, but help yourself by giving space to those activities that you see as bad, giving space to distraction, giving space to some doom scrolling, whatever it may be. I think we often get into a little bit of a panic that we can't focus, and we go to an extreme and we try and completely shut off those temptations, shut off that part of us that wants that distraction when actually it is part of the process. Your brain will eventually need a break from what you're doing. You cannot sustain selective attention or even focused attention for that long.

There is a certain point where you will max out and you do need to provide your brain with some release and some relief. So actually you let yourself have opportunities to do those things instead of kind of putting them on a pedestal or making them taboo or villainizing them more than they need to and therefore giving them a lot of the power to control you. You are actually in control of your behavior. So you're going to give yourself permission to allow for points. of distraction. It's also valuable to cue attention by remembering that our attention is goal orientated and it's goal directed. We are better at staying on task if we are regularly reminded of what it is that we're trying to achieve. If this task is just something that's pointless, if we don't see the outcome, if we aren't reminded of why, the why behind what we're doing, of course we're not

going to care about it. Of course it's going to be harder to concentrate. Of course we're going to want to do the thing that is more exciting and more fun and gives us more dopamine. So to counteract that, what you can do is write out your goal on a poster note and place it where you can see it to kind of help you stay focused. Before you set out to do something big, like start on a huge essay, start on a huge assignment, a huge work project, a huge house clean, provide yourself with three reasons why you want to do this thing and how it's going to feel when you're done. and two things that you're going to give yourself when you're finished.

So instead of thinking just about, oh my God, this is so rough, this is so hard, I'm so exhausted there's so much I would rather be doing. Really activate that part of yourself that feels goal directed and that knows it's going to be satisfied when this task is complete. Okay, so I have four final tips for you that are specifically around controlling social media usage because as we've spoken about, as a lot of you wrote in, that seems to be our main problem. Of course, they're designed to get you hooked. It is in the layout. It is in the architecture of social media apps of digital technology. But we can actually counteract the strategies that

they're leveraging to keep us hooked to reverse how addictive social media is. We can look at how they are getting us engaged and prevent or push back against those strategies. Here are some of the ways that we can do that. Firstly, only use social media on your laptop or on your like desktop computer. This helps limit kind of the constant temptation to bring out your phone at any stage and like hook into the apps. There is a place and a time and a location where you can access. the information and the entertainment of social media, it's not that you're completely cutting yourself off,

but you are making it less accessible throughout the day. Secondly, set usage limits. And when you hit your usage limit and find yourself wanting to just brush past the alert, stop and ask why. What are you getting from going back on that app? Or is it just a lot of short-term gratification and a dopamine spike? Is it just because you're bored? And could you do something else instead? I would say go and download an app that feels more productive on your phone that you can go to as an alternative. I'm talking like a crossword app. I'm talking a newspaper app like the New York Times or the Atlantic or the Guardian so that when you are feeling compelled to get that nice gooey feeling from your phone, you're actually getting something useful out of that urge.

Also, turn off notifications, I've done this, it's incredible, my friends will tell you that I'm always on Do Not Disturb, which I'm sure pisses a few of them off because sometimes, yeah, it does take me a little while to reply, but I actually think that that is worth it because I get more done, because I'm not getting pulled into like the consumption vortex when I just wanted to reply to like a short message. Finally, use a grey scale over your apps. So there is a setting in your phone if you have an iPhone that is going to make all of the content grey, black and white so that the reward of seeing these bright colours and flashes of light and all of these things is less appealing. And you're still seeing the same content. You're still seeing the messages. You're still seeing

the reels, you're still seeing like the comments and all those things that you would go to social media for, but it's taken away the kind of color allure. And it's taken away like the gratification of seeing something bright that doesn't really exist in the real, like in the outside world that's going to keep you coming back for more. I think that that's everything that I have for you today, I'm realizing that this ended up being a significantly long episode. So on theme, if you had the attention span to make it all the way through, congratulations. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I will say, I'm also quite sick, and I probably should have addressed it at the beginning, but I have tonsillitis, which is, you know, maybe something that you can hear in this recording.

So thank you for bearing with me as I am a little bit more nasally. I'm literally recording this in bed. So if you have made it this far, thank you. Make sure that you are following us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever you are listening right now. And if you can leave a five-star review, it would be greatly appreciated. It really helps the show to grow and reach new people. If you have anything else to say on this topic as well, as you probably heard, a lot of the insights did come from you, the listeners. So please feel free to DM me on Instagram. Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings. And as always, we will see you next week. Until then, stay safe,

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