Attention span and technology

70,000 thoughts drift through our minds every single day; it’s not surprising that we often find ourselves gazing into the (day) dream world when we’re strolling through the park, meant to be working or even watching our favourite television series. When our minds wander, we jump from one thought to the next with little restraint which can take us on an extraordinary journey, but in this day and age we must forcibly stop the flow of consciousness and focus on just one thing. This is becoming increasingly difficult in our modern, digitally heavy society and this is where our attention span comes into play.
 
Attention span is defined as the amount of time which one can remain focused on a thought or task without getting distracted. In 2015, Microsoft conducted a study (cited below) to find out the average attention span of a human being and compare this to the latest standing figure, determined in 2000, which was 12 seconds. The study concluded that the average attention span of a human is 8 seconds, meaning that from 2000 the average dropped by 4 seconds. Funnily enough, the most shocking fact wasn't that there was a such drastic drop from 2000, but rather the fact that the average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds! The average goldfish can hold a thought for longer than we can! If that hasn't got you worried, I don't know what will.
 
So, why the sudden drop in attention span, and how does this affect us in the long run? One widely accepted theory for this drastic drop is the influence of modern technology; from March 2000 to December 2015, the number of people using the internet increased from 304 million (5% of the population at the time) to 3366 million, 46.4% of the population at the time. A study performed by Garry Small (cited below) - Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA - found that it only took 5 hours (1 hour a day for 5 days) of surfing the web to completely rewire the brain. Human brains are designed to change and adapt to any environment in which it finds itself, and when exposed to a digital environment, there is no exception. Bearing that in mind, what are the consequences of the brain’s rapid reformation?
 
To put it concisely, our brains become more easily distracted and this subsequently leads to us becoming less focused, slowing down our education and hindering our ability to learn and think deeply. Repeatedly getting sidetracked by an ad, changing songs on YouTube, a quick venture on social media, all inhibit our mind’s ability to focus. Furthermore, everytime we see an ad or distraction and click on it, we get a hit of dopamine which leads to our brain craving more, rewiring itself to actively seek the sources of those hits. What this does is use your mental resources rendering you more tired and mentally taxed. With a nigh-on infinite wealth of information, more than any human could hope to digest in a thousand lifetimes, and never-ending distractions available at our fingertips, one can see how with a lack of self-discipline and restraint, we can easily be led astray. The greatest danger however, is that because we have been cultivated to never focus on anything for more than a few seconds before running off for another distraction, we never learn to focus on our own thoughts, what make us us. We spend more and more of our time engaging our minds and filling it with random bits of jumbled mess we find online instead of thinking and self-reflecting and developing as people. Yes we have access to more knowledge than ever before, but what’s the point of it if we lose the very essence of what makes us human? 
 
All is not lost however, there is a long-term remedy to this lack of concentration. Like all distractions, one must learn how to deal with it in their own way. I’ve come up with a few ground rules that may help you stay focused in the future:
- Take your time and breathe. A short attention span is often attributed to having little patience, a state our brains adopt when we enter the digital world. Learning to take your time and not rush from one piece of information to the next, will help you to drown out the useless information and focus on what’s important to you. 
- Make sure nothing is distracting you in real life. Among many teens and young adults, sleep deprivation is a common theme that hurts focus. I mention this above others because many problems often stem from a lack of sleep and catching up on it would solve quite a number of them.
- Finally, take a break from the internet and social media. I’m by no means against either of these, and I think it would be extremely hypocritical of me to condemn others for using the internet whilst I’m using it myself, but some people forget what’s outside. If we never stop and focus on the real world, and stop to think about who we are as people, what we stand for and what we are willing to fight for, then what we run the risk of is our personal development being tainted by an overuse of technology. Without caution, we will become not a people of knowledge and wisdom, but rather sheep who follow others because we have forgotten how to think for ourselves. Humans are great because of our individuality and unique experiences, but give us a device with WiFi, and what are we reduced to?
 
This has been Timothy K. Bosse, thank you for reading.
 
Citations: 
https://advertising.microsoft.com/en/wwdocs/user/display/cl/researchreport/31966/en/microsoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/
http://alohamindmath.com/blog/attention-span-key-effective-learning/
http://www.bettermind.com/articles/factors-that-affect-focus-and-concentration/
https://www.wired.com/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/
http://www.sleepcouncil.org.uk/sleep_media/key-facts-and-figures/
 
 

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