Since the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, the flow of information has accelerated. Books and newspapers turned into the fast-paced media of television, the internet, and social media. Already in 1971, psychologist Herbert A. Simon claimed: “the wealth of information means a poverty of attention.”
However, in this era of ongoing distractions from the tabs on your laptop and apps on your phone, we’ve by now crossed the line into the poverty of attention.
Why? Put on a timer for 47 seconds – that’s the time an average knowledge worker concentrates on one task at a time. Then they switch the screen. Ten years ago this was 3 minutes, which isn’t a great result either. But as research shows, our attention span is getting shorter and shorter.
So what? Someone might ask. Is this a problem? Well, think for a moment: what can we actually accomplish in 47 seconds?
Can we learn or understand complex phenomena? Can we solve intricate problems? Can we think and be creative? Can we be in a flow state? Can we listen to what our colleague is saying and provide an empathetic answer? In 47 seconds, we can’t.
But: Can we answer a message? Hit the like button? Check a comment and react with a heart? Copy-paste a ChatGPT answer?
In 47 seconds we can do a lot, but accomplish little. We can react to a lot of stimuli but not innovate anything new. We can keep in touch with our social media network but not be there for someone who really needs us. We might feel that we have a lot going on but in fact, we’re not contributing to the things we find truly meaningful. And in the big picture, this is destructive. We won’t solve global crises with an attention span of less than a minute.
Our shrinking ability to focus doesn’t of course affect only our work performance or productivity. Unfortunately, it also leads to increasing stress levels as we over-exhaust the brain with constant attention shifting from one task to another. And it affects how we behave in our free time: our eyes glued to a screen as we cross the street or prepare dinner for our child.
The brain learns what we repeat
Our brain is plastic, which is great, and quickly learns the things we repeat. However, if we read mainly short social media posts, it becomes harder and harder to focus on reading a book or a longer article. Or if we pull out our phone every time we’re a little bit bored, our brain associates the feeling of boredom with the need for entertainment that can be instantly fulfilled with the phone in our pocket.
As a consequence, we instinctively grab our phone in a grocery store queue, at a red traffic light, in a restaurant when a friend goes to the toilet, or in an online meeting when we don’t need to speak up. We start to multitask and soon find ourselves answering an email, not having a clue what our colleagues just discussed. Our conscious mind can’t focus on two cognitive tasks – writing and listening – at the same time, and we only turn from that email when we hear someone mentioning our name. Sounds familiar?
With our short attention span invading our free time, we also seem to work around the clock. As we can’t foresee the content we get from our phones, we’re keen to seek these surprises over and over again (if you have turned off your phone’s notifications, you still can relate to the urge to check whether there’s something interesting). By relentless repetition, we’ve taught our brain to desire these constant surprises.
Sometimes the dopamine hit we look for might be a cute message from our spouse or friend. Another time it’s a tension-causing email from our supervisor that we read in bed – leading to an overanalysis of whether something went wrong in the project delivery earlier that day. We’re so used to constantly checking our phones that even though it wouldn’t be required to read any work-related messages in our free time, we find it hard not to – especially if we know that our supervisor is working extra hours.
Our mind is constantly at work, but to do our work productively and in a way that’s sustainable for our well-being, we need focus. Or can you think of any important work task where you don’t need concentration?
The human species has survived thanks to high alertness and a short attention span. Our mind is naturally tuned for anything threatening (a lion), pleasurable (food), or novel (the possibility to learn) in our surroundings.
The reason for our short attention span isn’t the attention economy around us, it’s in our own nature. The brain isn’t built for knowledge work and it actually resists deep focus. There’s a good reason for that: as hunter-gatherers, we had to be alert most of the time. If we didn’t pay attention to the rustle in the bush, we wouldn’t have survived the lion attack. If our brain would easily enter into a deep focus mode (or flow) where we forget our surroundings, we wouldn’t be writing this text and you wouldn’t be reading it.
The human species has survived thanks to high alertness and a short attention span. Our mind is naturally tuned for anything threatening (a lion), pleasurable (food), or novel (the possibility to learn) in our surroundings. This trait has been a vital condition for us. But it’s a trait that makes it hard to live a balanced life in a world full of distractions where we spend our days in front of screens that are full of novel, pleasurable, and threatening information.
Still, there’s hope. We’d like to think that we’re soon reaching a tipping point in these years of suffering attention. The average Western consumer doesn’t anymore consider all-new high-tech devices to be the fulfillment of their dreams. Instead, we’ve developed a more healthy love-hate relationship with them. Some scientists have started to call the technology industry the “interruption industry” that every year produces a new technology to interrupt our naturally weak human attention.
We do get a nice dopamine hit from that flaming little push notification on a WhatsApp message, email, or “like” in social media. But we’ve also started to get irritated by how they constantly interrupt us, dragging us from the present moment and stealing our focus from something more important. While we’re addicted to the devices because they give us the instant happy feeling we crave, we also want to get rid of them.
You could compare this trend to what happened to smoking. First, everyone did it. Then a small group of scientists started to recognize its dangers. The knowledge expanded and persistent lobbying led to results. In the end, governments enacted harsh restrictions to change people’s behavior.
We’re confident that humankind will relearn the ability to focus. It’s your biggest competitive advantage in a world of never-ending information.
That’s why we warmly welcome you to this course! We’re proud of you for reading this text even with a naturally short attention span – and wanting to develop your focus for getting things done, reaching your goals, and improving your ability to be more present.