Dear Attention,

I often feel as though you change drastically due to technology. I mean, looking back at the detox I did, I have had a significant improvement in my relationship with you. You’ve become longer, no longer desiring to go through YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.

Or so I thought…

While taking a look at Stolen Focus, I realize my phone may not be entirely to blame. Chapter ten begins as follows:

“The poll identified people who felt their attention was getting worse, and then it asked them why they believed this was happening. It gave them ten options to choose from, and asked them to select any and all that they felt applied to them”

— Johann Hari (Stolen Focus, Chapter 10).

From here, Hari continues on to explain how stress was the number one ranked reason, which was chosen by forty-eight percent of participants. The next two reasons included a change in life circumstances, also chosen by forty-eight percent of people, and difficulty or disturbed sleeping, chosen by forty-three percent. In fact, Hari mentions that “Phones came fourth, chosen by 37 percent” (Stolen Focus, Chapter 10).

Seeing these stats ranked all at once was an extreme shock to my mind. All this time, I believed that my shortened attention span was a result of social media; however, I realized I don’t actually use social media that much.

So now, what could be causing this?

This fascination with Hari’s words engulfed my brain as I thought about what could be occurring. As I looked back at my data detox plan, I began to remember how my days would occur. From the moment I would wake up, I would often feel tired. As this occurred, I would often go throughout the days extremely tired, and as a result, I believe that this tiredness also caused a lack of focus.

Additionally, stress was one of the pieces of data being measured during that experiment. I realized that for a couple of days, my stress levels happened to be high, which was associated with less productivity. As I became less stressed, my productivity increased. As a college student in my senior year, I often feel stressed as I have capstone assignments, classes to attend, and the pressure to maintain my grades.

This new perspective feels as though I have been unfairly blaming social media, which is because I was. So much so that I would see videos and articles that social media is the cause of shortened attention. I don’t believe this is necessarily not a problem; however, it was the way that I took it. Almost as if social media is the sole and only reason for this, despite barely using apps like Instagram or TikTok.

This feels similar to what Johann Hari has mentioned before in a study where attention spans have been changing since phones were even invented. So, although phones and technology and the internet feel like a real problem, and definitely can be, sometimes we need to look deeper into what’s truly going on with ourselves in order to improve things like focus and flow.

Sincerely,

Someone who’s distracted but hopeful