Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Electronics-Induced Inattentiveness?
An anonymous reader writes: I am a graduate student in his twenties who used to be able to read dozens and dozens of lengthy books in his childhood. Over the years, I have noticed that my attention span and ability to concentrate has decreased noticeably, seemingly in synchronization with society's increased connectedness with the Internet and constant stimulation from computers and mobile devices alike. I have noticed that myself and others seem to have a difficult time really sitting down to read anything or focus on anything relatively boring for even more than ten seconds (the "TL;DR Generation," as I sometimes call it).
I see it when socializing with others or even during a professor's lecture. I have tried leaving my mobile phone at home and limiting myself to fewer browser tabs in an effort to regain concentration that I believe has been lost in recent years. Nonetheless, this is an issue that has begun to adversely affect my academic studies and may only get worse in time. What advice do fellow Slashdot users have with regard to reclaiming what has been lost? Should such behaviors simply be accepted as a sign of the times?
I see it when socializing with others or even during a professor's lecture. I have tried leaving my mobile phone at home and limiting myself to fewer browser tabs in an effort to regain concentration that I believe has been lost in recent years. Nonetheless, this is an issue that has begun to adversely affect my academic studies and may only get worse in time. What advice do fellow Slashdot users have with regard to reclaiming what has been lost? Should such behaviors simply be accepted as a sign of the times?
I can't handle summaries more than 3-4 lines long, can someone sum it up for me?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Find something to actively do. Have no more broadcasted stimulation than the radio. By doing something you'll focus your attention.
I tend to work on machinery or cars in my workshop. Still can be very technical when building an engine from a bare block with mains, but needs focus.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Quit social media, quit 4chan, quit masturbating (BIRM) quit reddit, quit facebook, and go back to reading books again.
Edit your hosts file or put in firewalls if you have to. Get an old flipphone that makes texting difficult and browsing near impossible. Disable your data plan.
Use a hand-me-down laptop/desktop pc that is so horribly slow it's painful to browse modern websites on.
You have the power of time management. Accepting a low attention span as a sign of the times is giving up, like an addict.
How?
Tried and true: Yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, walks in nature, do what you love to do (and which gives you energy).
Even just a mindfulness class or book might help you in the right direction.
Don't become a leaf in the wind. Take charge.
Yes. A proper root cause analysis is important here.
Is electronics the actual root cause? I suspect not. Most of the issues the OP describes are pretty typical examples of stress/burnout.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Forget about how it affects your academic studies -- the academic world has always been a far stretch from reality, so the older most people get, the less it makes sense to study and learn in heavily structured environments.
Now, regarding the distraction, here's what I do.
Every week, I measure my happiness. There are countless psych-industry surveys, and a few very official ones, but any technique that makes sense for you will work just as well. It can be the number of times you smiled, the ease with which you slept, your willingness to go to work on monday, the number of times you went out with friends, the amount of chocolate you ate, or didn't eat, whatever. Your measure of happiness is all that matters, and any will do, provided that it's the same technique for six months at a time.
So every week, measure your happiness. Again, not your joy (emotion), your happiness (state of mind).
Buy an old "dumb" phone for $10. Basic address book, telephone, crappy texting. The kind of phone that was AMAZING in 1998. The kind of phone that only the very wealthy had in 1996. The kind of phone that only kings had in 1995. The kind of phone that only freakin' astronauts had in 1994.
Use it for two weeks instead of your modern smart phone.
See what happens to your happiness measurements. Maybe they'll go up. Maybe they'll go down.
The point is simply this. Every week, make an arbitrary change from what you're doing today, to something that is or was perfectly amazing to someone else. See if you become a happier person. Forget about measuring by price, or appearance, or opinion, or status. Just look at your own face in the mirror, or feel your own face with your hands, and see what makes you happier.
Do so objectively, and within a year you'll transform so many different parts of your life that you won't even recognize it anymore -- because it'll be a perfect extension of you.
I bought a piece of furniture that most people haven's seen seen the 16th century. It doesn't match any other piece of furniture in the house. But it's super-comfortable, and my favourite place in the house. Sitting in it is an instant-soothe.
1) Experiment. 2) Measure. 3) Adjust. 4) Measure. 5) Iterate.
I've only recently gotten a smartphone, after being a holdout for a long time. Before that, one of my beefs with smartphone users was that they were always reaching for their phones whenever they might otherwise have been bored. It seemed to me that they had lost something valuable: time to contemplate.
However, now that I have a smartphone, I no longer think about that.
Definitely this. Don't bring your laptop to class, bring a notebook and pen. Don't check your phone unless you've got an incoming call you need to take.
You might not be quite as efficient in note-taking (if you're in certain disciplines), but you'll be a lot more able to focus on what's going on, and you'll retain a lot more.
When studying, turn off your phone, or at least disable notifications.
TL;DR: When you're doing something, do one thing well.
As with anything worthwhile in life this requires willpower. I'm surprised it took you all the way to grad school to have trouble plowing through boring text books. The truth of the matter is no matter how far we've advanced we aren't really any better at shoving knowledge into your brain. The real change that has happened in the Google universe is that the philosophy of "Why memorize it when I can Google it?" has taken over. Unless you have some form of ADHD (honestly severely over-diagnosed but does exist) then the ability to sit down and read something long that is not interesting falls to pure willpower. I didn't want to do homework either but if I didn't my grades suffered. "Consequences" All of these distractions that are more "interesting" to you can wait. Don't blame technology for giving you more distractions to choose from.
I'm also a graduate student who has noticed a reduction in my (and my peers') ability to concentrate. It's a daily struggle to fight back against sources of distraction, but I've made some small changes that have helped me and might help you (and other Slashdotters) as well:
- I try to print really important papers and read them on paper. It is wasteful (recycle nonessential papers if desired), but pulp has no tabs;
- If I read analog media at my desk, I turn off my monitors to avoid notifications;
- I turn my phone on silent and flip it over on the desk for the same notification avoidance--works well with OS' that allow repeated callers to ring through while other notifications you designate keep the phone silent;
- I try to be a more "engaged" reader, taking notes on the paper (see my first point) to force my own engagement with the material. My mind wanders if I'm bored, which is entirely possible with academic material, so to stave off the boredom I'll do more to insert myself into the reading process.
Baby steps to change habits over time.
If you don't actually concentrate on doing things for extended periods of time, you're going to lose your ability to do it.
So when you have some spare time instead of flipping through slashdot or reddit why not try actually doing something for an extended period of time? Read a book, do a hobby, go for a walk, take a bike ride for fun, go to a coffee shop and casually read a big newspaper, do the crossword puzzle. I read a lot of novels and do some woodworking on the side. A quiet evening in the shop with hand tools and the radio in the background is a great way to decompress.
Smartphone apps are intentionally designed to grab your attention. The human brain actually triggers the reward center each time you get a new text, or email, or social media message. The more you do those things the more your brain is trained to react instantly to a new event, thus breaking your concentration on whatever you were doing.
If you want to really focus on something, it's probably best to disable your notifications so that only emergency events get through. (Or even turn the thing off completely if you can.)
I noticed a similar tendency in my own behavior. There are two things that I've done about it. First, around an hour before bedtime, all the electronics go off. Pull out a book of whatever you like to read for recreation. Force yourself to start reading, but don't force yourself to keep reading, because then it will feel like a chore. The deal is that you can read as long as you'd like, but when you put the book down, the light needs to go off too. Second, almost everyone has some kind of creative endeavor that they can pursue on their computer. In my case, there are a small number of programming projects that I've started. Writing software requires long periods of concentration, and if you're working on something interesting, then you'll have more incentive to stick to the project.
If you're unhappy with your level of concentration, then find something you enjoy concentrating on. Then when you're obligated to do something tedious, you at least have the attention span to properly apply yourself to the task.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Here is a revolutionary new way to sit in a lecture...
Sit in your seat, pull out a pen, pull out a pad of paper ("spiral notebook", "Legal Pad", whatever).
If the professor/lecturer says something important... write it down. If the professor is boring, doodle idly while you listen.
Leave the laptop, ipad, phone at home.
The subject says it all, but let me give you specifics. My tools may not be the same as yours, but the same principles apply.
1. Mobile Device
I have a recent Android device. I have turned off all audible notifications in all applications except for phone calls and SMS messages. That brings the notifications down to the '90s dumb phone level. With notifications off, I choose when I'm going to pull my phone out and check things, and my device only interrupts me for important communications (text messages and phone calls).
Delete the Facebook and Twitter apps. You can use Facebook from the browser, and it's more secure that way anyway. Replace Twitter with Twidere, which by default must be launched and the feed updated manually, though it will notify you of direct messages and mentions. Sign out of Google Hangouts. This ensures it only bothers you for text messages, and when you're off your computer, you're signed out of instant messaging and people know they either have to call you or text you if they want you.
2. Computer
I use a KDE-based Linux desktop (currently Manjaro), so you may have to adapt this. KDE has this thing called Activities, which let you group apps by function. Currently, I have only two: Desktop and Social. These are two separate screens that I have to Meta-Tab to switch back and forth to see. I know there are virtual desktop utilities for Windows, and I think the Mac lets you put apps on various screens now, but you're probably guessing where I'm going with this. On the Social activity, I have my email client (KMail) and my Twitter client (Choqok). My email client is set not to show a notification or play a sound when a new message comes in: that would be a distraction. Same with the twitter client (you have to set the system tray icon to Hidden to accomplish this).
Using an email client is important: if you use a browser tab, guess what? You'll see that little number in parentheses telling you how many emails have come in, and you'll then be tempted to check it. Don't use your browser. Use a client.
And while I'm on the subject of browsers, you should have two plugins installed: an ad blocker and a flash blocker. For those sites (like Slashdot) that you want to support, let the ad blocker show ads, but keep the flash blocker active so the ads don't become intrusive. It's easier then to read articles and such without the ads getting in the way. For most sites, block it all. And for heaven's sake, don't keep a Facebook tab open. Visit the site when you want to visit it, and then close the tab.
With this system, when I'm supposed to be focusing on work, I'm on my Desktop activity. I never receive a notification for email or any social network. If I have to use a browser in the course of my work, which is a frequent happenstance, ads and flash are blocked by default, and I don't mix it with my email.
Does this mean I miss stuff? Never. Like you, I realized I have an attention span problem that I didn't have in the past. That attention span problem induces me to check things on a regular basis. What I've removed is the interruptions: I'm probably going to check all those things anyway. That increases the amount of time I'm able to focus, and if I feel the need to check something, my email and twitter feed are a Meta-Tab click away.
What I have found is that I've been able to find that focus and "lose myself" in my tasks again. I am no longer interrupted all the time by things that have a lower priority than what I'm currently doing, and I'm much happier with what I'm able to accomplish as a result.
I hope this helps!
This week I found a book in the library, "Ontketen je Brein" (Unchain Your Brain), the result of scientific research by Dutch psychologist Theo Compernolle.
In this book, he show how the brain really works and what adversely affects it.
The main thing he he does not stop repeating is: take a break, go off-line.
The main brain chains are:
Very interesting stuff to read.
I was invited to an event the other day where there were a lot of very wealthy people; Bank presidents and their investors. Open bar, free food, free valet parking and coat check. While in there mostly being a wallflower (because I am not good at this sort of event), I happened to notice that nobody was sitting there staring at a screen. In fact, I heard no alerts, no ringtones, and saw no trusty smartphones strapped sturdily to the hip. Nobody pulled a cell phone out to check the time, or the weather or their messages. During the entire three hour event I saw exactly one of these people look briefly at a cellphone. It was a smartphone, but a very early model with a small screen, and looked well used. She glanced at the time and put it away.
Not drawing conclusions, just something to ponder.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You need to come visit Earth in the 21st Century sometime. At least among the college students I teach:
- College is the time to practice, exercise, and test out being an adult. Yes it's fundamentally a safer and lower-impact space than elsewhere. If there are some failures along they way then they can recover and be used as learning experiences.
- Students are not having educations paid for by mommy and daddy; mommy and daddy are probably dirt poor or not in the picture. Student's education are being paid for by financial aid from the state (I think 80%) at my school and egregious loans.
- Phones are part of their lives even if they're not physically on the at all times. Most of my students have jobs, children, other family members they take care of, and expect to be available in case of an issue or emergency. Yes, this makes it much harder for them.
Frankly I say this as an lecturer who fought bitterly against having any phones out in the classroom for several years (points off, attendance penalties, etc.) Within the last year I finally surrendered on the issue because it was simply unwinnable and caused escalations up to and including physical threats against myself. Having relaxed that requirement, I've found that counter-intuitively it seems like less of a problem; students do seem to keep them available in a mature fashion, and actually fewer of them are challenging the rule by fiddling continuously with them. So that's just anecdotal, but it's been my pleasantly surprising experience in all my classes this year.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes