Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody, will welcome back to the show. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are
Speaker 2: in the world, it is so great to have you here.
Speaker 2: Back for another episode, another topic, another deep dive, as we,
Speaker 2: of course break down the psychology of our twenties. Okay,
Speaker 2: there has been a trend that I've been noticing recently,
Speaker 2: both within myself but also those around me, across social media,
Speaker 2: amongst my workmates, even from you guys, the listeners that
Speaker 2: everybody is talking about, and that is our collective declining
Speaker 2: ability to con and our ability to focus. So many
Speaker 2: of us in this day and age are struggling to
Speaker 2: stay on task, struggling to keep away from our phones
Speaker 2: and kind of push back against like the siren call
Speaker 2: of TikTok and Instagram. One professor has even stated that
Speaker 2: our levels of inattention have reached an epidemic rate. That
Speaker 2: might sound a little bit extreme, but I think that
Speaker 2: it's something that all of us can relate to I
Speaker 2: want you to seriously ask yourself the simple question of
Speaker 2: when was the last time you were able to spend
Speaker 2: a complete hour on a single task without getting distracted?
Speaker 2: For me, I think for most of us we probably
Speaker 2: can't remember that time. It's pretty safe to assume that
Speaker 2: there has been a gradual decrease in our attention spends
Speaker 2: going on for some years. A lot of us really
Speaker 2: started noticing it post COVID and post Long Down, when
Speaker 2: a lot of us really did get quite engrossed in
Speaker 2: short form content on TikTok, when we lacked any structure
Speaker 2: to our days, when we were allowed to kind of
Speaker 2: follow any impulse that we had because there was nothing
Speaker 2: else to do. That has seemingly bled into where we
Speaker 2: are now and the consequences of that time. And I
Speaker 2: think a whole number of factors is contributing to our
Speaker 2: inability to focus and concentrate for a sustained period of time.
Speaker 2: The area I think we notice it most is when
Speaker 2: it comes to those kind of activities that require us
Speaker 2: to be concentrated for some time. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: say more than an hour at least, But where there
Speaker 2: are our little short term consequences if we don't stay focused,
Speaker 2: so things like study or remote work, where yes, there
Speaker 2: are things that you need to get done, but you
Speaker 2: are in charge of your own timeline, and so you
Speaker 2: can get drawn into doom, scroll into Wikipedia, deep dives
Speaker 2: into TikTok, look up at the clock, realize that thirty
Speaker 2: minutes have gone by, and you know, having to kind
Speaker 2: of try and start all over again, only to find
Speaker 2: yourself a few minutes later drawn back into some other
Speaker 2: task or some other source of entertainment. I think that
Speaker 2: is the area where a lot of us arenoticing this occurring.
Speaker 2: The other space is around daily planning and getting things
Speaker 2: done on a daily level, daily tasks, but also in
Speaker 2: conversations with others. I don't know if this is just
Speaker 2: something I've noticed amongst my friends that we've spoken about,
Speaker 2: but our conversations are becoming a lot more quick, and
Speaker 2: there is a lot more space and a lot more
Speaker 2: kind of like jumping around rather than like a continued
Speaker 2: sustained focus on one topic. So I asked you, guys,
Speaker 2: how many of you had noticed a shift in your
Speaker 2: attention span in the last two five years. Eighty eight
Speaker 2: percent of you had noticed at least some difference in
Speaker 2: an area of your life, and sixty percent of you
Speaker 2: noticed a huge difference within that. That was from almost
Speaker 2: eight thousand responses. So this is not like a small number.
Speaker 2: This isn't a small minority of the population, and it
Speaker 2: shows that this impact on our ability to focus and
Speaker 2: the impact that we're feeling on our attention spans is
Speaker 2: significantly burdening. Those of us in our twenties and those
Speaker 2: of us in younger generations. Think back to when we were,
Speaker 2: you know, in our early mid teens. I remember that
Speaker 2: I could sit down and read a book for hours
Speaker 2: and the time would just fly by. I could focus
Speaker 2: on my homework for a solid chunk of time before
Speaker 2: I needed a break. I could watch TV and not
Speaker 2: kind of needs to be on my phone at the
Speaker 2: same time, I could have conversations and not be thinking
Speaker 2: about my to do list and all the other things
Speaker 2: that I needed to get done. I think our attention
Speaker 2: spans are shrinking in very measurable and observable ways, and
Speaker 2: it's valuable that we talk about it. So in today's episode, firstly,
Speaker 2: we're going to understand why why is this happening? Do
Speaker 2: we only have our phones to blame, or is it
Speaker 2: kind of a broader combination of burnout, of overstimulation, of
Speaker 2: repetitive workloads, of trying to do everything at once, and
Speaker 2: you know, big media and marketing companies really leveraging what
Speaker 2: they know about our attention spans. But also, what is
Speaker 2: the impact if you haven't already seen an impact for yourself,
Speaker 2: what is some of the psychology saying about what this
Speaker 2: means for us long term? And finally, is there a solution?
Speaker 2: I feel like that is quite a rhetorical question. Of
Speaker 2: course there is. I wouldn't be talking about this if
Speaker 2: I didn't have something that you could do about it.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about it. And I also
Speaker 2: wanted to hear from you guys. You all wrote in
Speaker 2: some incredible responses about you know, late stage ADHD diagnoses
Speaker 2: which are becoming so much more common. You spoke about
Speaker 2: screen times above nine or ten hours a day, deleting
Speaker 2: apps and then re downloading them later, miss deadlines, you know,
Speaker 2: late night spent compensating for all the distractions. There were
Speaker 2: so many valuable insights that came from you, all the listeners,
Speaker 2: and I want to share it all. So without further ado,
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop rambling and let's discuss what it
Speaker 2: is about our attention spans these days and why it
Speaker 2: seems harder than ever to stay focused. Let's get into it,
Speaker 2: so let's quickly get up to speed on some of
Speaker 2: the basics of attention. We tend to think of attention
Speaker 2: as being only one thing, the ability to focus on
Speaker 2: one specific task for a continuous period of time without
Speaker 2: being distracted, and it's something that's in our control. What
Speaker 2: we're talking about when we talk about a controlled, sustained
Speaker 2: period of focus is actually only one form of attention
Speaker 2: called sustained attention. We also have selective attention, where there
Speaker 2: are multiple stimuli and things going on in the environment
Speaker 2: and we have to choose to focus on just one
Speaker 2: and tune in or filter out the other distractions. And
Speaker 2: then we have alternating attention. This is also known as multitasking,
Speaker 2: where we switch back and forth between tasks that have
Speaker 2: different cognitive demands. So this might sound efficient, right, You're
Speaker 2: writing your essay whilst also listening to a lecture, or
Speaker 2: you're texting and driving. That's the classic one. But study
Speaker 2: after study will tell you that when you're performing two
Speaker 2: or more tasks at once, especially ones that are cognitively
Speaker 2: demanding and splitting up your focus. This will actually lead
Speaker 2: to lower efficiency on both tasks. It makes us sloppier,
Speaker 2: it increases our stress. But also, I think I can
Speaker 2: speak from experience, it takes so much more time than
Speaker 2: if you've just done each thing, you know, one after
Speaker 2: the other and consecutively. So that is alternating attention. And
Speaker 2: the final kind of attention we have is divided attention,
Speaker 2: and this is very similar to alternating. It basically highlights
Speaker 2: our ability to react to two or more different demands
Speaker 2: or things in our environment simultaneously. So this kind of
Speaker 2: attention dividing attention is just less cognitively demanding. It basically
Speaker 2: is you know, your ability to watch TV whilst also
Speaker 2: eating normally. The actions that we're doing are quite procedural.
Speaker 2: So of all these kinds of attention, the area where
Speaker 2: a lot of us are suffering is selective attention. Basically,
Speaker 2: our environment has a lot of stuff going on, and
Speaker 2: we have to choose to only focus on one thing
Speaker 2: within that in order to get shit done. I think
Speaker 2: most people without chronic attention issues or conditions or neurotypes
Speaker 2: like ADHD could likely focus fairly well if they were
Speaker 2: given a task in a quiet, empty room. That is
Speaker 2: where sustained attention really flourishes, when we only have one
Speaker 2: thing to do, one thing to focus on, nothing else.
Speaker 2: But in a very modern world, these conditions they are
Speaker 2: so rare. Our lives are filled to the brim with
Speaker 2: opportunities for distraction or competing stimuli, and so we need
Speaker 2: to be able to filter all those other things out
Speaker 2: and prioritize what's in front of us. That is becoming
Speaker 2: a lot harder, leading to a greater reliance on alternating attention,
Speaker 2: switching back and forth from our phone to our computer,
Speaker 2: to our environment to somebody talking without limited success. Some
Speaker 2: people who are a lot more qualified than me have
Speaker 2: sought some answers and explanations to this problem of our
Speaker 2: diminishing selective and sustained attention. So there was a recent
Speaker 2: study in the UK done at King's College, London, and
Speaker 2: it found that about half of US adults think that
Speaker 2: our attention spans are getting shorter, and that number is
Speaker 2: actually going to go up for people between the ages
Speaker 2: of eighteen and thirty four. Sixty six percent of us
Speaker 2: in that age bracket, which I'm assuming is probably you
Speaker 2: noticing a change, a shift and one that is noticeable.
Speaker 2: So there is like a common myth that has been
Speaker 2: swirling around that our attention spans are now so poor
Speaker 2: that they rival that of a goldfish. It might feel
Speaker 2: that way sometimes, but actually we're still very much winning
Speaker 2: that competition, but only by a little bit. And we
Speaker 2: know this based on a longitudinal study that is actually
Speaker 2: still going on now. So one of the leading race
Speaker 2: churches in this space, in the space of attention, is
Speaker 2: doctor Gloria Mark and she is a psychologist and a
Speaker 2: professor from the University of California, Irvine. Now, back in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands, whilst she was studying people's attentional rhythms,
Speaker 2: which we're going to get back to a little bit
Speaker 2: later on, she started to notice that the people she
Speaker 2: was observing were really not doing too good at staying
Speaker 2: on track when it came to the tasks that they
Speaker 2: were being asked to do. So she switched focus. She
Speaker 2: wanted to see how long most of us, or the
Speaker 2: people that she had sampled for her studies, could stay
Speaker 2: on a task or a project before moving along, and
Speaker 2: whether that this was being impacted by new technologies. So
Speaker 2: at the time it wasn't. It was kind of like phones,
Speaker 2: but also computers. It was really before like the social
Speaker 2: media craze. But because she started early, she was able
Speaker 2: to track our attention spans through the use big societal
Speaker 2: shifts in our access to technology. So she started back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four, that's almost two that is
Speaker 2: two decades ago. And what they would do at the
Speaker 2: very beginning was they would quite literally follow people around.
Speaker 2: They would shadow their participants for a day with stopwatchers.
Speaker 2: That was the best kind of technology they had available
Speaker 2: to them at the time. And for every single activity
Speaker 2: that they did, they would record the start time and
Speaker 2: the stop time. So if you are on a screen
Speaker 2: working on a word doc, as soon as you pick
Speaker 2: up your phone to check your email, you stop doing
Speaker 2: the word dock activity, and the time of the email
Speaker 2: activity starts. As soon as you stop with your email
Speaker 2: and you go and look at TikTok, for example, the
Speaker 2: email activity stops, TikTok starts. And they wanted to see
Speaker 2: how long people were spending on each different activity before
Speaker 2: they seemingly got bored and moved on to the next.
Speaker 2: Back in two thousand and four, the average attention span
Speaker 2: was about two and a half minutes. Throughout the years,
Speaker 2: it's become even shorter, So around twenty twelve it was
Speaker 2: seventy five seconds, and then in the last you know,
Speaker 2: five six years, that has almost halved again to where
Speaker 2: we are now, which is roughly forty seven seconds. That's
Speaker 2: the average amount of time that we spend concentrating on
Speaker 2: a task before we shift focus. And if that number
Speaker 2: seems quite impossibly small, there have been other studies that
Speaker 2: have since replicated the exact same finding within seconds and
Speaker 2: again and again. Around forty seven forty five seconds is
Speaker 2: the median. If you want to test that for yourself,
Speaker 2: have a look at your phone pickup data in your settings.
Speaker 2: So I will out myself. I will go first. I
Speaker 2: looked at this earlier today and yesterday I picked up
Speaker 2: my phone around two hundred and thirty five times across
Speaker 2: a fifteen hour period. That is sixteen times an hour,
Speaker 2: so almost once every five minutes. Now that's not exactly
Speaker 2: forty seven seconds, but you've got to remember once every
Speaker 2: five minutes, but I'm probably spending a minute on it
Speaker 2: each time. I'm probably jumping between different apps, and then
Speaker 2: I'm coming back to the task, then I'm picking up
Speaker 2: the phone again. It is all kind of averaging out
Speaker 2: to a forty second you know, median amount of time
Speaker 2: that you can spend focused on one thing. I will
Speaker 2: say that this sounds alarming. A lot of researchers have
Speaker 2: noted that this is very much task dependent. So if
Speaker 2: you are doing something really engaging, you can really focus
Speaker 2: on that single thing for a while, compared to if
Speaker 2: you're sitting in sitting in on a task that is
Speaker 2: repetitive or unnecessary, boring, like a work meeting that you
Speaker 2: really don't feel like you need to be at, or
Speaker 2: a lecture where you're not really being given an opportunity
Speaker 2: to engage, especially if it's online. Right, You're more prone
Speaker 2: to distraction in those cases because you're not fully immersed
Speaker 2: or engaged in what you're doing. So in this way,
Speaker 2: the idea of an average attention span is quite vague,
Speaker 2: because I think most of us would find it hard
Speaker 2: to not wander off or seek out another form of
Speaker 2: entertainment when we're doing something that doesn't really require a
Speaker 2: lot of mental effort. Right, if you're just staring at
Speaker 2: a screen for five minutes doing nothing, not really engage
Speaker 2: in your brain. Of course, there is going to come
Speaker 2: a time where you get bored, and especially your brain
Speaker 2: gets bored and pushes you to seek out, you know,
Speaker 2: a tasty little spike of dopamine from something else in
Speaker 2: your environment. So I wanted to hear from you guys.
Speaker 2: When it came to this for me, I really began
Speaker 2: to notice my declining focus back when I started full
Speaker 2: time work, but especially when I would work from home.
Speaker 2: There was no accountability. There was no pressure of an
Speaker 2: exam or an assignment deadline at university. There was no
Speaker 2: one watching over my shoulder, and so that digital temptation
Speaker 2: of my phone was pretty easy to fall into. This
Speaker 2: only got worse when I quit my full time job
Speaker 2: and I started working exclusively for myself. Yes, I am
Speaker 2: super passionate about what I do, and I have a
Speaker 2: lot of motivation to get stuff done. But when you
Speaker 2: are alone for eight hours a day most days, working
Speaker 2: in your house in the same environment, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of opportunities for distraction. But it's also quite boring
Speaker 2: and understimulating to be doing the same thing, And so
Speaker 2: my brain kind of circles my environment, and it circles
Speaker 2: my surroundings, and it is always looking for something better
Speaker 2: to be doing that is going to feel more enjoyable.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good point to be made here,
Speaker 2: especially in our current work environments. For a lot of us,
Speaker 2: you can't really sit down, buy yourself for eight, nine
Speaker 2: ten hours a day, stare at a screen and not
Speaker 2: expect yourself to be distracted, or you know, believe that
Speaker 2: you could pay attention for that entire time. The human
Speaker 2: brain just doesn't work like that. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: hear from you guys, and what you had to say
Speaker 2: about this. Here is someone who articulated it quite well.
Speaker 2: Since COVID, my attention span has suffered greatly. I am
Speaker 2: such a routine person and I like to be productive. However,
Speaker 2: I somehow pick up my phone for a five minutes
Speaker 2: scroll and then an hour or two has been wasted
Speaker 2: away due to an unintentional brain rotting death scroll. Then
Speaker 2: I feel ashamed and guilty, yet also paralyzed because I
Speaker 2: think that I've wasted the whole day, and there I go,
Speaker 2: I have to start again tomorrow. That shame spiral this
Speaker 2: person mentioned is something we need to speak about, because
Speaker 2: the more powerless and overwhelmed we feel, the more this
Speaker 2: object our phone controls us. Because it feels almost personified right, like,
Speaker 2: it's not this inanimate object, it is this thing that
Speaker 2: is staring back at us that can truly impact and
Speaker 2: influence our emotional state. And there is this constant tug
Speaker 2: of war between wanting to assert control over our phone
Speaker 2: but feeling like it's constantly winning, and finding that we're
Speaker 2: constantly being pulled in by a notification, by a call,
Speaker 2: by a text, by an email, by just our brains,
Speaker 2: constant seeking out of the dopamine that we know our
Speaker 2: brain will provide. Here's another perspective that I think touches
Speaker 2: on something similar. I always need to have some real
Speaker 2: slash videos playing in the background, or else I'll feel
Speaker 2: super bored and constantly distracted by my own thoughts that
Speaker 2: are telling me to not touch my phone. I've been
Speaker 2: trying to set fifteen minute Instagram reminders, but it's not
Speaker 2: helping it all. I hate it so much. It feels
Speaker 2: like I'm no longer living in the moment. I think
Speaker 2: that's what makes this so difficult again, is knowing how
Speaker 2: we want to live our lives, knowing what we could
Speaker 2: do with all that time, lamenting it how unproductive we are,
Speaker 2: and feeling powerless like our phones have kind of hijacked
Speaker 2: our previously functioning attentional systems, and no matter what we do,
Speaker 2: we cannot influence this behavioral pattern. So I want to
Speaker 2: hear from one more person who has something to say
Speaker 2: on this as well. My attention span has been seriously
Speaker 2: impacted ever since I graduated high school. Beginning in college,
Speaker 2: I've noticed a severe decline in my ability to focus,
Speaker 2: to pay attention, or stay motivated in school, work, family obligations,
Speaker 2: even in conversations with others unless I am really interested
Speaker 2: in it. I've also seen an uptick in my issues
Speaker 2: with organization, forgetfulness, and procrastination, even with things that I
Speaker 2: really care about. It's frustrated the people in my life
Speaker 2: who depend on me, or I end up having to
Speaker 2: ask them for help, like when I forget my keys
Speaker 2: for the sixth time and my roommate has to come
Speaker 2: home to let me in. That very functional impact is
Speaker 2: also something that needs to be acknowledged. It's like our
Speaker 2: brain has lost its executive functioning skills and it's kind
Speaker 2: of sabotaging us in a way. If you have a
Speaker 2: neurodevelopmental disorder like ADHD, it makes sense that you would
Speaker 2: have trouble paying attention or you would you know, struggle
Speaker 2: with your impulse control. But the global prevalence for ADHD
Speaker 2: is around six to nine and a half percent. Probably
Speaker 2: that is a lower end estimate when you know, we
Speaker 2: start focusing on things like late stage diagnosis or the
Speaker 2: fact that they are very poor criteria for identifying women
Speaker 2: and girls, especially women of color, people of color, and
Speaker 2: also some of the stigma towards neurodis developmental disorders. That
Speaker 2: rate of prevalence might be a little bit higher, probably
Speaker 2: around ten percent, but that doesn't really match up with
Speaker 2: the eighty percent of people who are experiencing this decline, Like,
Speaker 2: we can't all have ADHD, right, that would be a
Speaker 2: global phenomena, So there must be another explanation. I will say,
Speaker 2: if you do think that ADHD would provide the answers,
Speaker 2: it is something that is likely that you have. You
Speaker 2: should listen to episode one hundred and forty eight with
Speaker 2: Ellie Middleton. She is an ADHD and autism advocate, and
Speaker 2: she goes into this more. She talks a lot about
Speaker 2: late stage and late onset and diagnosis when you're an adult,
Speaker 2: and also some of the misconceptions. But for people without
Speaker 2: a diagnosis or who you know don't believe they have ADHD.
Speaker 2: There can be little explanation for why our attention spans
Speaker 2: are suffering, So I want to talk about some of
Speaker 2: the other reasons that we are struggling to focus and
Speaker 2: struggling to concentrate after this short break, I think when
Speaker 2: we are looking for an explanation for why our attention
Speaker 2: spans are so fucked, we need to focus on what
Speaker 2: some people say as the main culprit. Of course, it's
Speaker 2: our phones that is often the first place that our
Speaker 2: mind goes to. Our phones and the apps that they
Speaker 2: contain provide so much temptation but also more stimulation than
Speaker 2: we can ever really get out of our everyday lives
Speaker 2: and everyday moments, which is quite sad. But when you
Speaker 2: think about the design of social media apps, for example,
Speaker 2: or the way that you receive notifications for texts, for calls,
Speaker 2: for messages, it is all meant to achieve one thing.
Speaker 2: It is meant to keep us hooked, keep us online,
Speaker 2: and keep us using So, as one author put it,
Speaker 2: screens and our phones in particular present a very unique
Speaker 2: mindfield of distraction because they are providing us with a
Speaker 2: constant flow of information and stimulation. At its core, Social
Speaker 2: media in particular was designed to capitalize on how we think,
Speaker 2: so it's little surprise that we're really drawn to it.
Speaker 2: It's not just the fact that there are algorithms catching
Speaker 2: our attention. We have this sense that we have to respond,
Speaker 2: we have to check. We don't want to be left out,
Speaker 2: and we know that if we go to our phones
Speaker 2: for entertainment, it will provide. In the same article, it
Speaker 2: goes on to explain that human brains, we know this already,
Speaker 2: They really crave novelty, they really like excitement, but also
Speaker 2: social connection and all of these apps that we find
Speaker 2: ourselves addicted to essentially provide that in a very easily
Speaker 2: accessible format. And it also provides a sense of reward.
Speaker 2: So every time you go to your phone for that dope,
Speaker 2: mean hit, you know that you will find something that
Speaker 2: will satisfy you. You know that you will find a
Speaker 2: funny video. You know that you will find some piece
Speaker 2: of gossip or a photo of a friend that makes
Speaker 2: you feel kind of clocked into this broader social network,
Speaker 2: so it keeps you coming back for more. The other factor,
Speaker 2: another component of this, is that when you continuously give
Speaker 2: into the temptation which it's hard not to do, right,
Speaker 2: That's the whole point of this design, Like they want
Speaker 2: you to stay hooked. So when you do what they
Speaker 2: have essentially instructed you and manufactured you to do, and
Speaker 2: you pause a task to check your phone, your brain
Speaker 2: also has to shift gears. It has to stop what
Speaker 2: you were previously doing and move on to this new task.
Speaker 2: And this process, this kind of jumping about that negatively
Speaker 2: affects the overall speed and quality of your work in
Speaker 2: the short term and in the long term. The more
Speaker 2: you engage in task shifting, the more your brain wants
Speaker 2: to wander off and look for that new thing, because
Speaker 2: you have somewhat conditioned it into thinking, Okay, when I've
Speaker 2: spent five minutes on something, ten minutes on something, I
Speaker 2: get a reward, I get to change focus. And you've
Speaker 2: become very much used to alternating your attention rather than
Speaker 2: sustaining your attention. In other words, to put it more simply, essentially,
Speaker 2: what is happening here is that our brains are getting
Speaker 2: used to constant diversions, and that these diversions have become habit.
Speaker 2: So that is why you don't even consciously think about
Speaker 2: it before you pick up your phone to check a
Speaker 2: message before you pick up your phone, to check social
Speaker 2: media before you get up and go to the bathroom,
Speaker 2: even though you don't need to go right it's because
Speaker 2: this is a habit that has been kind of implanted
Speaker 2: in your brain. So even when you have a conscious
Speaker 2: intention to not do something, the procedural and automatic nature
Speaker 2: of our social media habits, in particular of our reaching
Speaker 2: for distraction of all of those things have become quite
Speaker 2: permanent and, like we said, quite automatic. So let's hear
Speaker 2: from our listeners about this. Because somebody DMed me and
Speaker 2: it was a really great example of how this happens.
Speaker 2: I have no attention span, and I think that is
Speaker 2: largely due to short form content like TikTok. I've been
Speaker 2: desperately trying to put my phone down and increased time
Speaker 2: doing stuff I love that doesn't involve a screen. I
Speaker 2: deleted TikTok a couple of months ago. However, my screen
Speaker 2: time is no better, and I still find myself stuck
Speaker 2: on my phone. My UNI work has suffered dramatically this
Speaker 2: last year, and I cannot, for the life of me, concentrate.
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to finish any crochet projects, something
Speaker 2: that I love doing, and I can't finish books either.
Speaker 2: It's really frustrating. And I think my phone use is
Speaker 2: the biggest issue. I mean, right now, I've been sat
Speaker 2: on it for an hour instead of getting dressed. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for sharing. I think the other factor
Speaker 2: in this is that going to our phones for entertainment
Speaker 2: is so easy. It's like the easier, easiest alternative. It
Speaker 2: is the path of least resistance because it is so
Speaker 2: effortless to be immediately carried away, whereas reading or crochet
Speaker 2: projects like this person mentioned, they take more time to
Speaker 2: get into. They really require a bit of a setup.
Speaker 2: You know. It's so much easier to go from working
Speaker 2: on a task that requires a lot of cognitive effort
Speaker 2: like at work or at UNI and going to your
Speaker 2: phone where your brain can shut down, versus having to
Speaker 2: completely shift to getting into a book, getting into a plot,
Speaker 2: getting into creating something. But what's fascinating to me is
Speaker 2: that the creation of something, the pursuit of something, the
Speaker 2: engagement with something like knowledge like fiction like a book,
Speaker 2: or or something active like making things, it is more
Speaker 2: fulfilling in the long term, but it just takes more
Speaker 2: effort to start and nowadays we have an easier alternative, right,
Speaker 2: Like we can just go and look at short form videos.
Speaker 2: We can just get our hit there. So the question
Speaker 2: that I kind of want to pose in response to
Speaker 2: that is is it that we are more distractable? Is
Speaker 2: it that our attention spans are declining and it is
Speaker 2: our fault? Or is it just that the world around
Speaker 2: us is more distracting and that big media and marketing
Speaker 2: companies and apps are just like aggressively trying to fight
Speaker 2: for our attention and therefore leveraging what they know about
Speaker 2: our brain, which is that it likes novelty and newness
Speaker 2: and that it doesn't like uncertainty or boredom, and it
Speaker 2: is taking that information. These companies, these designers are taking
Speaker 2: what they know about our brains and using it to
Speaker 2: essentially hijack our motivational and attentional systems for profit. Basically, like,
Speaker 2: is it our fault? Is it our fault that this
Speaker 2: is what is happening to so many of us? Or
Speaker 2: is it just that our brains are being flooded deliberately
Speaker 2: with dopamine from our phones. Is it that we are
Speaker 2: increasingly working long hours at disengaging jobs in boring offices
Speaker 2: without sunlight. Is it that we are just constantly being
Speaker 2: fed very fast and quick and efficient entertainment and few alternatives.
Speaker 2: So I want to focus on that explanation for a second.
Speaker 2: Let's kind of put our phones and let's put social
Speaker 2: media aside for a moment. I think it's gotten enough
Speaker 2: hate in this episode. I've given it enough hate. Let's
Speaker 2: look at some other elements or other explanations as to
Speaker 2: why our attention spans are failing us. Is the reason
Speaker 2: that we can't focus anymore because we are perhaps too
Speaker 2: stressed and too overwhelmed. That is another explanation. So in
Speaker 2: his book Stolen Focus author Joanne Hari, who you might
Speaker 2: also know from his book Lost Connections, it talks about
Speaker 2: how information overload has been creeping into our lives and
Speaker 2: impairing our ability to pay attention. For some time. Back
Speaker 2: in the day, we spent so much more time being present.
Speaker 2: We had less to navigate and to do. Our jobs
Speaker 2: were a lot more based on problem solving or serving.
Speaker 2: They were kind of forward facing. They were, you know,
Speaker 2: very much like solution focused, like there was something very tangible,
Speaker 2: a problem that was very tangible that needed to be
Speaker 2: fixed or needed to be fulfilled and we would do that.
Speaker 2: They were also a lot more social and a lot
Speaker 2: more collaborative, which is another thing that we need to
Speaker 2: make note of. Nowadays it is so much simpler, but
Speaker 2: that also means it is so much more boring. It
Speaker 2: is more boring to move something around and excel spreadsheet,
Speaker 2: to enter emails all day without connecting. I think that
Speaker 2: back then it was simpler times, and now we are
Speaker 2: being asked to do so much more in a much
Speaker 2: more restrictive environment without really knowing our purpose, and our
Speaker 2: work has become very fairstly, screen based, but also repetitive,
Speaker 2: almost draining, and in an increasingly I think competitive and
Speaker 2: overwork generation. Burnout is also pretty rampant because we are
Speaker 2: pushing ourselves to do more, to be more in an
Speaker 2: environment and in a situation that isn't necessarily fulfilling. So
Speaker 2: I think it's no wonder that we have little bandwidth
Speaker 2: for everything going on in our lives. It is no
Speaker 2: wonder that we are constantly bouncing between things that grab
Speaker 2: our attention. We no longer have the mental resources to
Speaker 2: properly control our impulses or our concentration because of how
Speaker 2: worn down we are by burnout and then of course
Speaker 2: also by overstimulation. So this is another component of this
Speaker 2: book that we were talking about, stolen focus. He speaks
Speaker 2: about how our brains are just being pushed so much
Speaker 2: more environmental stimuli than ever before, and so it can't
Speaker 2: actually navigate all of these things. It can't actually create
Speaker 2: a hierarchy or a list of what it needs to
Speaker 2: focus on first. You know, I think about this when
Speaker 2: I thought about this when I was in the city
Speaker 2: the other day in Sydney and there are flashing billboards,
Speaker 2: there are crowded spaces, bright lights, heavy traffic, there is
Speaker 2: like loud music playing from every single store in supermarkets,
Speaker 2: on the bus, and then my foreign is buzzing. There
Speaker 2: is so much more information to process at a rate
Speaker 2: that is faster than our brain has been able to
Speaker 2: adapt or evolve to. The demands have outstripped our brain's
Speaker 2: capacity for evolution. It's important to remember that we have
Speaker 2: a brain that was designed for thousands of years to
Speaker 2: exist in nature, to exist in small groups, to feel
Speaker 2: the ground with our feet, to forage for berries, to
Speaker 2: problem solve, to think about survival, not just to be
Speaker 2: focused on a screen that is thirty centimeters from our face.
Speaker 2: At all hours of the day. So that shift from
Speaker 2: really seeing the world more broadly, engaging with the environment,
Speaker 2: to engaging with something digital and very closed off and
Speaker 2: very like, I don't know, right in front of our
Speaker 2: face is like the best way I can kind of
Speaker 2: think about putting it. That shift has only really taken
Speaker 2: place in the last I would say generously, like fifty
Speaker 2: years and fifty years that is only a generation of adaptation,
Speaker 2: whereas there were thousands of generations and thousands of opportunities
Speaker 2: for evolution and development and adaptation in you know, in
Speaker 2: our ancestors, in the times that have come before that
Speaker 2: have created the brain that we have now for these
Speaker 2: new circumstances. So, you know, thousands of years of doing
Speaker 2: things one way and then in the last fifty years
Speaker 2: suddenly everything has changed. When you zoom out and think
Speaker 2: about it in that way, our brains just genuinely cannot
Speaker 2: process what is happening in our environment based on what
Speaker 2: it was, you know, what it has evolved and developed
Speaker 2: to do. Those things are too dissimilar, and so our
Speaker 2: attention span is essentially failing to keep up. We can't concentrate,
Speaker 2: we can't focus. It's not an isolated problem. It is
Speaker 2: not just a U problem or a ME problem. It
Speaker 2: is a collective societal problem. So is that it do
Speaker 2: we kind of just leave it there and watch our
Speaker 2: attention spans continue to decline until we are like goldfish?
Speaker 2: Obviously not, I have saved the best for last, because
Speaker 2: as irreversible as the headlines and the articles make it sound,
Speaker 2: we can still fix our attention span and reverse some
Speaker 2: of the damage that is done by all of the
Speaker 2: above culprits, not just our phones, but our environment. So
Speaker 2: I have five practical tips for you today, and know
Speaker 2: they are not going to be things like get enough
Speaker 2: sleep or exercise, because I think we probably are all
Speaker 2: aware of those. Instead, I have some actual scientific practices
Speaker 2: for you to implement, probably even starting today if you
Speaker 2: would like. We're going to begin with the first one,
Speaker 2: find your peak focus times. Something that you will notice
Speaker 2: is that there are different points in the day where
Speaker 2: you are just more focused than others. Each of us
Speaker 2: actually has a specific period when we are more attuned
Speaker 2: and focused, and it's easier to concentrate because sustained attention
Speaker 2: occurs in a rhythmic pattern. So there was a paper
Speaker 2: published in twenty nineteen in the Yale Journal of Biology
Speaker 2: and Medicine, and it found that our cognitive performance either
Speaker 2: peaks between ten am and two pm or four pm
Speaker 2: to ten pm. That doesn't mean that you can't still
Speaker 2: get things done outside of those times or in a
Speaker 2: time that doesn't necessarily align with your peak focus time,
Speaker 2: just that it might be harder. And this focus period
Speaker 2: is determined by our chronotypes, which is basically our body's
Speaker 2: natural inclination to be awake and asleep and alert or
Speaker 2: passive at different times during the day, and it is
Speaker 2: based on our circadian rhythm. Put simply, our body works
Speaker 2: on a rhythmic kind of scale. It works on a
Speaker 2: cycle of alertness and kind of sleepiness, I guess is
Speaker 2: the opposite of that. Some of us are early birds,
Speaker 2: and some of us work really well during the night
Speaker 2: when the sun is down, and that all depends on
Speaker 2: how your circadian rhythm is set up. So I'm definitely
Speaker 2: the latter. I can concentrate for much longer at nighttime,
Speaker 2: and I've found that that makes me a lot more
Speaker 2: productive instead of trying to force myself to do like
Speaker 2: incredibly like cognitively overwhelming and like mentally strenuous tasks like
Speaker 2: first thing in the morning, I save them for after
Speaker 2: like five PM, or like at least after two PM,
Speaker 2: because I know that between the hours of like nine
Speaker 2: and twelve, that is the time when I need to
Speaker 2: do things that are a little bit more passive and
Speaker 2: that require a little bit less effort because they're just easier,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not as alert during those times
Speaker 2: for some people, though, I have a friend who works
Speaker 2: really well between like five am and ten am. It's
Speaker 2: about finding what works for you, and if you want
Speaker 2: to support your ability to concentrate, try and recognize and
Speaker 2: notice when it feels like you are most in a
Speaker 2: flow state without trying. So a flow state is a
Speaker 2: mental state in which we are completely focused in on
Speaker 2: a single task or activity and fully immersed. We feel
Speaker 2: both energized, but we're also enjoying the process. So that
Speaker 2: is like one of those examples of when you're just
Speaker 2: you look up the clock, you realize that you've been
Speaker 2: working on your paper for like half an hour, or
Speaker 2: you've been fixing up an Excel deck or a PowerPoint
Speaker 2: deck for you know, an hour, and you haven't even
Speaker 2: realized You've been editing something, You've been talking to somebody
Speaker 2: for that period of time, and time is just going
Speaker 2: by super quickly because you are so focused. And the
Speaker 2: reason behind your focus is both probably that you're engaged,
Speaker 2: but most likely you're also conducting this activity at a
Speaker 2: time when you are better able to concentrate. So try
Speaker 2: and find those times and perform those heavy duty tasks
Speaker 2: during that period. This really brings me to my next tip.
Speaker 2: Choose your high focus tasks. Focus on them, but when
Speaker 2: you're done with them, stop. Don't try and keep forcing
Speaker 2: yourself to do things out of a productive window when
Speaker 2: you're really fear yourself, like wanting to take a break,
Speaker 2: wanting to go on your phone. It might sound counterintuitive,
Speaker 2: but help yourself by giving space to those activities that
Speaker 2: you see as bad, giving space to distraction, giving space
Speaker 2: to some doom scrolling, whatever it may be. I think
Speaker 2: we often get into a little bit of a panic
Speaker 2: that we can't focus, and we go to an extreme
Speaker 2: and we try and completely shut off those temptations, shut
Speaker 2: off that part of us that wants that distraction, when
Speaker 2: actually it is part of the process. Your brain will
Speaker 2: eventually need a break from what you're doing. You cannot
Speaker 2: sustain selective attention or even focused attention for that long.
Speaker 2: There is a certain point where you will max out,
Speaker 2: and you do need to provide your brain with some
Speaker 2: release and some relief. So actually can let yourself have
Speaker 2: opportunities to do those things instead of kind of putting
Speaker 2: them on a pedestal or making them taboo or villainizing
Speaker 2: them more than they need to and therefore giving them
Speaker 2: a lot of the power to control you. You are
Speaker 2: actually in control of your behavior, so you're going to
Speaker 2: give yourself permission to allow for points of distraction. It's
Speaker 2: also valuable to cue attention by remembering that our attention
Speaker 2: is goal orientated, and it's goal directed. We are better
Speaker 2: at staying on task if we are regularly reminded of
Speaker 2: what it is that we're trying to achieve. If this
Speaker 2: task is just something that's pointless, if we don't see
Speaker 2: the outcome, if we aren't reminded of why the why
Speaker 2: behind what we're doing, of course we're not going to
Speaker 2: care about it. Of Course it's going to be harder
Speaker 2: to concentrate. Of course we're going to want to do
Speaker 2: the thing that is more exciting and more fun and
Speaker 2: gives us more dopamine. So to counteract that, what you
Speaker 2: can do is write out your goal on a post
Speaker 2: a note and place it where you can see it
Speaker 2: to kind of help you stay focused before you set
Speaker 2: out to do something big like start on a huge essay,
Speaker 2: start on a huge assignment, a huge work project, a
Speaker 2: huge house claim. Provide yourself for three reasons why you
Speaker 2: want to do this thing and how it's going to
Speaker 2: feel when you're done, and two things that you're going
Speaker 2: to give yourself when you're finished. So instead of thinking
Speaker 2: just about, oh my god, this is so rough, this
Speaker 2: is so hard, I'm so exhausted, There's so much I
Speaker 2: would rather be doing, really activate that part of yourself
Speaker 2: that feels goal directed and that knows it's going to
Speaker 2: be satisfied when this task is complete. Okay, So I
Speaker 2: have four final tips for you that are specifically around
Speaker 2: controlling social media usage, because, as we've spoken about, as
Speaker 2: a lot of you wrote in, that seems to be
Speaker 2: our main problem. Of course, they are designed to get
Speaker 2: you hooked. It is in the layout, it is in
Speaker 2: the architecture of social media apps, of digital technology. But
Speaker 2: we can actually counteract the strategies that they're leveraging to
Speaker 2: keep us hooked. To reverse how addictive social media is.
Speaker 2: We can look at how they are getting us engaged
Speaker 2: and prevent or push back against those strategies. Here are
Speaker 2: some of the ways that we can do that. Firstly,
Speaker 2: only use social media on your laptop or on your
Speaker 2: desktop computer. This helps limit kind of the constant temptation
Speaker 2: to bring out your phone at any stage. And like
Speaker 2: hook into the apps, there is a place and a
Speaker 2: time and a location where you can access the information
Speaker 2: and the entertainment of social media. It's not that you're
Speaker 2: completely cutting yourself off, but you are making it less
Speaker 2: accessible throughout the day. Secondly, set usage limits, and when
Speaker 2: you hit your usage limit and find yourself wanting to
Speaker 2: just brush past the alert, stop and ask why what
Speaker 2: are you getting from going back on that app? Or
Speaker 2: is it just a lot of short term gratification and
Speaker 2: a dopamine spike? Is it just because you're bored? And
Speaker 2: could you do something else instead? I would say, go
Speaker 2: and download an app that feels more productive on your
Speaker 2: phone that you can go to as an alternative. I'm
Speaker 2: talking like a crossword app. I'm talking a newspaper app
Speaker 2: like the New York Times or The Atlantic or the Guardian,
Speaker 2: so that when you are feeling compelled to get that nice,
Speaker 2: gewey feeling from your phone, you're actually getting something useful
Speaker 2: out of that urge. Also turn off notifications. I've done this.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. My friends will tell you that I'm always
Speaker 2: on do not Disturb, which I'm sure pisss a few
Speaker 2: of them off, because sometimes, yeah, it does take me
Speaker 2: a little while to reply, but I actually think that
Speaker 2: that is worth it because I get more done because
Speaker 2: I'm not getting pulled into like the consumption vortex when
Speaker 2: I just wanted to reply to like a short message. Finally,
Speaker 2: use gray great, use a gray scale over your apps,
Speaker 2: so there is a setting in your phone if you
Speaker 2: have an iPhone, that is going to make all of
Speaker 2: the content gray, black and white, so that the reward
Speaker 2: of seeing these bright colors and flashes of light and
Speaker 2: all of these things is less appealing. And you're still
Speaker 2: seeing the same content. You're still seeing the messages, you're
Speaker 2: still seeing the reels, you're still seeing like the like,
Speaker 2: the comments and all those things that you would go
Speaker 2: to social media for. But it's taken away the kind
Speaker 2: of color allure, and it's taken away like the gratification
Speaker 2: of seeing something bright that doesn't really exist in the
Speaker 2: real like in the outside world. That's going to keep
Speaker 2: you coming back for more. I think that that's everything
Speaker 2: that I that I have for you today. I'm realizing
Speaker 2: that this ended up being is significantly long episode, so
Speaker 2: on theme, if you had the attention span to make
Speaker 2: it all the way through, congratulations. I really hope that
Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode. I will say I'm also quite sick,
Speaker 2: and I probably should have addressed it at the beginning,
Speaker 2: but I have tonslidis, which is, you know, maybe something
Speaker 2: that you can hear in this recording, So thank you
Speaker 2: for bearing with me as I am a little bit
Speaker 2: more nasally. I'm literally recording this in bed. So if
Speaker 2: you have made it this far, thank you. Make sure
Speaker 2: that you are following us on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever
Speaker 2: you are listening right now, and if you can leave
Speaker 2: a five star review, it would be greatly appreciated. It
Speaker 2: really helps the show to grow and reach new people.
Speaker 2: If you have anything else to say on this topic,
Speaker 2: as well, as you probably heard, a lot of the
Speaker 2: insights did come from you, the listeners, so please feel
Speaker 2: free to dm me on Instagram at that Psychology podcast.
Speaker 2: I would love to hear from you. I would love
Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings, and as always,
Speaker 2: we will see you next week. Until then, stay safe,
Speaker 2: be kind, be gentle with yourself, and we will talk
Speaker 2: again soon