How's Your Attention Span?

Several articles over the past weeks have examined the growing assault on our attention spans and our capacity for cognitively demanding work such as writing complex emails or reports.

That problem's been around for a while. But the techno-distractions of modern life compound the difficulties. Our phones and screens clamor for attention. They demand to be seen and scrolled.

It's getting harder to focus for even brief periods of time. And the consequences are littered throughout contemporary life.

The length of pop songs dropped by a minute between 1990 and 2020. The SAT was revised this Spring to make it 45 minutes shorter. College professors are advised to change up what they're discussing every 10 minutes to avoid losing their otherwise distracted students. Those students also find it increasingly more difficult to get through an entire book or even to focus on their screens. One study found that in 2004 participants focused their attention on a screen for about two and a half minutes: now it's down to 47 seconds. ("The Battle for Attention: How do we hold on to what matters in a distracted age?" by Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 5/6/2024.)

The effects aren't just found in pop tunes and college lecture halls. Advertising execs are increasingly concerned about attracting attention to their work. Are an advertisement's "impressions" at all meaningful? Are LinkedIn's impressions?

One marketing professional compared the attention span of today's consumers to that of a goldfish.

Social scientists will continue to mull over the implications of their study findings but the rest of us are left to make our way through the distractions we face in our careers. How can we communicate with clients, prospects, or colleagues amidst all those shrinking attention spans?

It might be best to start with our own ability to focus. Reporter Katherine Bindley made a stab at it recently. ("How I Got My Attention Span Back," WSJ, 5/3/2024.)

The culprit in her case, as in many others, was a smartphone. Yet how could any of us consider ditching our phones with Google Maps, Uber, Lyft, Safari, Duck Duck Go, or other useful services?

So, Bindley reached back into her religious heritage and for Lent "gave up anything scrollable, swipeable and refreshable for recreation" along with TV.

Bindley says the "results were astounding." She reported that she was more productive at work, slept better, and was calmer. She recommends that we identify our weakness and focus on that. In her case it was "checkiness," aimlessly gazing at her phone for no particular reason.

And she rediscovered the pleasure of reading instead of scrolling. "It turns out that reading is like riding a bike: you don't forget how to enjoy it -- provided there's no distracting phone to steer you sideways," she said.

Personally, I think there's another important benefit from reading: deep reading is a gateway to better writing.

On balance, Bindley says that the minor changes in her habits "led to major changes" in her life and work.

I might try Bindley's technique even though I've missed the Lenten season. Maybe I can achieve similar results by conjuring up long suppressed memories of Sister Henrietta or Sister Mary Sarah scowling at me whenever I'm tempted to glance at Instagram or X.

Along with those technologically based distractions, another high hurdle to achieving an intellectually demanding task is our reluctance to just get on with it. Too often we choose to dawdle and delay.

For decades, the working hypothesis was that "cognitively demanding tasks, such as writing or solving math problems, required more" mental energy than swiping away at Tik-Tok. But studies have failed to confirm that assumption.

Instead, new research finds that our brains pretty much perform energy consuming activities all the time whether we're doing mental work or just staring out the window. ("Thinking Doesn't Have to Feel So Hard: New tricks and tools can make cognitively demanding tasks less painful," by Michaeleen Doucleff, WSJ, 4/27-28/2024.)

The more likely explanation for our procrastination is that we pay attention to the wrong things, Doucleff says. It makes them seem harder than they might otherwise be.

"In fact, studies suggest that we often overestimate the struggle and pain required to complete cognitive tasks," she reported.

"If we can kind of get past that initial hurdle of starting a task, then thinking becomes easier," neurologist Andrew Westbrook told her.

Focus your attention on the benefits of finishing a task rather than the effort required, Doucleff advises.

Admittedly, none of this is easy. Whether it's the challenges to your attention span or the innate reluctance to charge ahead on a demanding assignment, it'll require genuine effort. But it's doable.

I'll just point out that you've stayed around for all 804 words of this article. Perhaps that's as good a place as any to start.