I’m a full professor and chair of the psychology department at my university, which means I often give hour-and-a-half lectures for classes and conferences, and even sit in for more. But even though I’ve been at it for years, I can’t concentrate for an entire session. My mind is busy with other things I have to do that day, what I’m having for dinner that night, or when I get back to my office, I’m bound to be dealing with a few emails. I tried to exercise mindfulness being more present and living in the moment, but it’s not easy to sit and focus on your breathing for a few minutes without breathing mind wandering shut up I can’t even focus enough on something at work without looking at my phone every few minutes. Why can’t I just focus?
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. A group of researchers followed adults at work over a long period of time, monitoring what they did on their devices and how long they stayed alone on one task. Researchers have found that adults spend an average of three minutes on one task without being distracted by something else; they spent more than two minutes before switching to any software or paper document (Gonzalez and Mark, 2004).
The data for college students is even worse. In another study, researchers examined the computer behavior of college students over a 10-hour period and found that the average time college students spent on a single task was without switching. 19 seconds. In fact, 20 percent of all content students interacted with was only viewed for five seconds or less, and 75 percent—almost all of their content over a 10-hour period—was viewed for less than a minute (Jikelis, 2014).
You might be thinking: It’s not a big deal, I’m an excellent multiplayer. That may be true, but in general, multitasking comes at a cost (for everyone). Studies have shown that when you are engaged in a task and you switch to something else, even briefly – maybe you are working on writing something for your work and quickly look at your phone to answer a text – you will be slower and more accurate at the original task because of this momentary task switching. This has been called the “switch cost effect” in the psychology literature (Hari, 2022). This shows that there is always a cost to switching tasks, even if you are only distracted for a second. For no reason, 20 percent of all car accidents are caused by distracted driving.
The most surprising thing about these studies is that they were done 10 to 20 years ago. Can you imagine how things have progressed now that we have so many devices at our fingertips? Fully equipped with an endless amount of information and options?
Too many choices can be costly for attention. In a series of studies, researchers presented adults with consumer goods or college course options and then had them complete an unrelated task. They found that having too many options leads to fewer people self controlless persistent, less accurate, etc laziness about further tasks. Too many choices cause fatigue—it slows your brain’s ability to work or perform other tasks (Vohs et al., 2018).
And with so much choice at our fingertips, information is now coming at us faster than ever, which is also bad for our attention spans. For example, when examining the speed of popular media over the past few decades, researchers have reported faster news cycles and networks trying to cram more and more information into the same amount of time. Inevitably, we spend less time on any single topic (Lorenz-Spren et al., 2019).
Another thing that impairs our ability to focus is stress, and unfortunately, stress is on the rise. An estimated 37 to 49 percent of adults report feeling stressed on a daily basis, a huge increase over the past 20 years. Prices from anxiety is also increasing, with a 52% increase in new cases of anxiety in young adults since 1990 (Chajut and Algom, 2003). Even mild stress can reduce a person’s ability to focus (Skosnick et al., 2000), and severe stress or injury even related to it attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Brown et al., 2017). In fact, more than 7 million US children (11 percent) are diagnosed with ADHD each year, a huge increase over the past decade.
How do we revive our dead focus? The first thing is obvious – try to reduce stress. Studies have shown that attention deficits (and even ADHD diagnoses) can be corrected by reducing stress (Liston et al., 2009). Another is to put your phone away when you need to focus, because every sound, text, and notification means you’ll be less efficient at a task and may even make more mistakes.
The last thing is to do your best to choose tasks that have a clearly defined purpose and you have some internal motivation to complete – something that is meaningful and at the edge of your ability. Research shows that such tasks help you get “in the zone” or what scientists call a “flow state.” Here you can concentrate for a long time. The only way I can get into a flow state is to clear my schedule so I don’t get interrupted. And instead of randomly taking breaks while texting, schedule breaks at natural stopping points that make it easier to get back on task later.
Attention Basic reading
In general, with the speed and abundance of information, decision fatigue, etc stress environment than ever, it is not surprising that our attention suffers. This week, try doing something for yourself to reduce stress, eliminate distractions, and stay in the moment—it may be just what you need to be able to focus and get things done faster and more efficiently.
