Where has my focus gone?
The alarming truth behind your “broken mind”
“In the silence between thoughts, the true self emerges”
- Haemin Sumin
It is late afternoon, and I’m sitting, staring at my screen. I have feelings of disheartenment, defeat, and hopelessness whirling around inside my body. Thoughts of self-criticism push through and enter my consciousness every now and then, “you should have just prioritised better”, “you should really finish things”, “you should be more focused”. But, before these drops of self-criticismturn into a full-blown self-criticism sh** storm, I catch myself, realising I have (yet again) been sucked in by the digital vortex.
I’ve never considered myself someone who struggles with focus, productivity, or discipline. To the contrary, I tend to get this weird satisfaction from completing tasks and doing stuff. As such, I’ve never had trouble sitting down and absorbing myself with one thing for hours. As a child, I could spend hours reading, sitting peacefully whilst drawing, or just watching the shape of clouds and pondering the meaning of life. Yes, I was that weird 9 year old who would wonder about the existentialities of life instead of why my Hawaiian Barbie had pink hair instead of blonde. However, I am starting to fear that my ability to focus is slowly — or not so slowly — wasting away. Over the past few years I’ve increasingly struggled to focus on just completing tasks, or doing one thing at a time. This was particularly evident during the last few years of my PhD. It got to the point where I started to label myself as a procrastinator, even though I’ve never experienced any trouble getting things done. So, what has changed? Was I developing adult ADHD? Suffering from PhD burnout? Experiencing a loss of direction and purpose? Or was this just a symptom of high-functioning depression? I wanted answers! I wanted to “fix” this lack of doing. So, I turned to where I always turn to — science. And oh boy, did the penny drop!
Ever sat down in front of your computer ready to start working on that urgent project that you’ve prioritised for that day, and as you open your laptop or switch on your computer, you quickly check your emails? You start checking your emails, only to respond to a few urgent ones before returning back to working on the project. You start working on the project only to get curious about something you’ve read in one of the emails you opened previously and you head over to Google to satisfy your curiosity. After spending 45 minutes reading online content, flipping between different browsers, you return to your original project. You start working again but soon find yourself replying to a WhatsApp message on your phone. You return to your project, realising several minutes in that you have been formatting this entire time instead of actually working. You look at the time, it’s been 3 hours since you’ve sat your bum in the chair and you are not even 1% closer to finishing the project. You feel demotivated and abandon the task, reasoning to yourself that you are just not “focused enough” today and you move the task to tomorrow’s priority list.
Do you resonate with the above? If so, you are not alone. You may feel that you are not doing enough but, in fact, you are doing too much. I’ve started researching the effects of social media on our wellbeing back in my Masters year. Particularly, our need for solitude and how being constantly connected has robbed us of the ability to be alone. The intersect between technology and psychology has long fascinated me. Partly because I am such a g33k at heart. Reading the work of Dr Gloria Mark (”Attention Span”), Dr Johan Hari (”Stolen Focus”), Dr Anna Lembke (”Dopamine Nation”), and Cal Newport (”Deep Work”), it became all the more evident to me that we are not as “broken” as we think, and that the problem we are facing is not so much psychological but largely biological.
Technological advances far exceed the evolution of our brain
Sadly, our brains have not evolved to cope with so many interruption and so much overstimulation. This overstimulation leaves us like fatigued zombies. Furthermore, being constantly connected to our digital devices have another costly association — anxiety! Research has shown that staring at electronic screens (i.e., phones, computers, tablets), actually raises your anxiety levels. Irrespective of whether what you are looking at is enjoyable or not. This means that the more time you spend on your electronic device, the more your anxiety will climb. This is your body’s normal reaction to the overstimulation. According to Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Standford University and host of the popular Huberman Lab Podcast, our visual field is a key driver in this. When our visual field shrinks (i.e., narrowing our gaze to a screen), it triggers an increase in alertness, which is a negative experience also called stress, anxiety, or fear. This means that if you spend hours a day staring at your screen, working on accounts, drafting reports, writing content, reading articles, designing websites, editing photos, clipping videos, or doom scrolling, you are guaranteed to have a higher than baseline anxiety. Now, top that with some good ol’ coffee and a lack of sleep, and you have just created the perfect anxiety storm where your body feels like it cannot function.
Unfinished tasks are taking up our RAM space
Another piece of science I found fascinating was that Dr Clark and her team found that we tend to hold on to unfinished tasks by “parking” them at the back of our minds. Using the example above, if you had set out to do the project, but failed to complete it and pushed it back to the priority list. This unfinished task will be lurking in the back of your mind, every now and then breaking through your subconscious into your conscious mind, reminding you of its unfinishedness. This is similar toyou having several tabs open in your internet browser. Those open tabs take up tremendous RAM capacity on your computer. And if you’ve ever had too many tabs open, you know what happens! You get that lovely error message asking you to force quit tasks because your computer’s processing memory is running out of space. Just like that, our proverbial cognitive RAM is also “running out of space”. The “parking” of unfinished tasks is extremely taxing on our cognitive resources and the more tasks you park, the higher the mental load. This means that the more you procrastinate on tasks, the more tasks will remain unfinished, the more these will drain your mental resources, the more unmotivated you fill feel, and the more “mind fog” you will experience. What a vicious circle, right?!
We’re so distracted, we’re intentionally distracting ourselves
But, there’s another, even more concerning attention zapper, and it is not even external to you! In her book, Attention Span, Dr Clark also talks about how we have become used to interrupting ourselves. Not only are we battling the constant external distractions emanating from our pockets and computers, but we are also creating our own internal distractions. These internal distractions is what Dr Mark refers to as self-interruptions. Because we have become so used to being distracted and interrupted all the time, we tend to distract ourselves even when these external interruptions are absent. Being constantly interrupted by external stimuli have become our “normal”, so we then self-interrupt to keep this pattern of familiarity. We are not even aware of how often we do this, well that is, until you do! Worse is, we tend to make these self-interruptions a habit! I’ve actually noticed myself falling prey to self-interruptions several times during the writing of this single newsletter. According to Dr Mark, our attention spans have diminished so rapidly in less than a decade that we went from being able to concentration for few minutes at a time, to now only being able to retain attention for around 47 seconds. Say what?! Just think about it, do you routinely check your emails before getting to work? Or open your Slack messages every time you open your laptop? Or jump on your phone as soon as you sit on your couch after dinner?
It is not all in your head
I firmly believe that this overstimulated, continuously connected world we live in is what is largely contributing to the significant increase in symptoms of burnout, mental fatigue, physical exhaustion, anxiety, procrastination, lack of attention and motivation, depression, insomnia, and disconnection that people are experiencing. Unfortunately, we tend to treat any symptoms indicative of an “understimulated” brain with more stimulants (hello there amphetamines), or we try to eliminate anxiety by leaning into suppressants (hello benzos and CBD gummies), or we do even more cognitive tasks using an already taxed brain (hello CBT homework).
Don’t get me wrong, as a practicing psychologist, I am fully aware of the psychological underpinnings associated with symptoms of depression, burnout, insomnia, anxiety, ADHD, and other mental disorders. I am not discounting actual organic disorders. I am also fully aware of the toll that the pandemic has taken — and is still taking — on people. I am also aware that the current loneliness epidemic is a key contributing factor to the increased anxiety and depression rates (and yes, lonely individuals do tend to spend more time online!). I am also aware that several mental disorders cannot just be attributed to the use of digital devices. However, I do believe that we should not ignore the significant psychological implications associated with living in a digitally-driven era.
As a digital and artificial intelligence activist, I am a strong proponent of technology and its use. As such, I am not saying technology is “bad”. Technology is extremely valuable and brings with tremendous benefits. By itself, technology is just a tool. Neither good nor bad. However, how it is used is what ultimately matters. Just as medications are used to treat illnesses. When used irresponsibly, it can do great harm. Similarly, a knife is a wonderful tool for a chef, but can be a disastrous tool in the hands of a thief. As such, technology is not to blame. Those who use technology are. This is empowering to know. Why? Because it means that you have the power to shape how you show up and function in this world. Your actions will determine how this new digital world will impact you. I think we have moved beyond the point of just assuming we will figure out how to live with technology. We wont just figure it out, we have to already act it out. We need to start intentionally shaping our use of technology around our precious — yet structurally behind — cognitive resources. If you truly want to escape feeling like you are just floating through life, your attention will need to become your primary focus (no pun intended there).
Technology use and ADHD
Oh and let’s not just blame ADHD! People are often under the false assumption that it is only those with ADHD that struggle to focus, fall prey to problematic phone use, or don’t finish tasks. However, this is not the case. This has been evidenced by a 2021 study, using 107,000 individuals. Even though those individuals diagnosed with ADHD may be more vulnerable to the onslaught of distractions posed by digital devices, non-ADHD individuals are equally affected! In fact, I would not be surprised if those who score high on personality traits such as conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism are even more vulnerable to the clutches of the digital vortex. Why? Because these individuals tend to be driven by creativity, curiosity, and exploration. They have a thirst for knowledge. To learn. To absorb. To teach. Repeat. For these individuals, it is literally like a kid in an all-access candy store!
— —
So, the next time you want to criticise yourself for not doing enough, for procrastinating too much, for being too distracted, for being too tired, or for lacking focus and motivation. Stop. Instead, pause and reflect on your own use of technology. How much you are self-interrupting? How much time do you really spend absorbing information online? How much doom scrolling are you doing?Instead, start to embrace the discomfort of quiet moments by grabbing a book instead. Build that model airplane. Pull out that 1500 piece puzzle. Commit to an in-person bookclub event. Try a new recipe. Build some lego. Start journalling. Or better, just do nothing for a bit. Become untethered from the constant hum of notifications. Rediscover the beauty that lies in boredom, self-connectedness, and mental freedom.
If you’ve found this article helpful, why not pass it on to someone who you think may benefit from reading it too?
Also, I’d love for you to join my weekly newsletter, Lessons from the Couch, where I share weekly insights straight from my psychotherapy couch. To subscribe, simply click here.
