Current Events > I'm becoming increasingly concerned regarding my attention span economy.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This has been a long standing thought in my head since graduating from college with my bachelor's degree about 9 years ago. Over time my brain's processing power and ability to stay on a single train of thought for an extended period of time has decreased. For a long time I have been able to dismiss this (rightfully so, I think) as just not exercising my brain as much as a natural byproduct of not being in an academic environment as well as natural deterioration from aging. However in the past year I've had two thoughts which I think break the hypothesis of this deterioration stemming from aging and less mental exercise:

1) I have seen no resources suggesting aging does anything to deteriorate one's attention span. In fact I've seen a few sources (haven't done too much research into the legitimacy of these sources) which suggest that attention span can get better with age.

2) I have listened to music while running for almost my entire adult life (which I must admit I've only been very disciplined about running for the past 3 years now). This past summer I've tried running without listening to music to give myself more time to think of ideas and bits. This had a surprising effect. I found it harder for my mind to think and wander without listening to music. Instead of thinking of ideas, my head just thought of music for me. Then when I would run with music playing from my phone, my mind then felt free to wander, like some condition had been satisfied for my brain to work.

Point number two led me to thinking the following statement might be true:

-I have trained my brain to be addicted to audio stimulation.

This makes a lot of sense to me. With the rise of podcasts, and increasing access to much more music and any sort of audio-based media over the past few years, I'm almost always subjecting myself to some sort of input. I think this is what worries me the most now. With always subjecting myself to what other people are saying or music, I feel that my ability to create thoughts is diminishing, because I'm doing less thinking and allowing others to do it for me.

Now you might notice that my hyphened hypothesis doesn't quite match my topic title. Being addicted to audio input doesn't necessarily directly affecting my attention span. But I do think they are at least related. I feel like the main cause of my attention span slipping is due to social media, and I'm sure that's not going to be new or different from a lot of people here. Too often I find myself bored at work (not even necessarily bored, but even a slight lull in action or thought has me going to my phone), so I decide to check reddit, facebook, gamefaqs, twitter, and reddit. But I just checked reddit. Logically I know there should be nothing new of value to me, but I still instinctively go back to it. I feel like this quick access to social media and reading other people's thoughts and opinions is a large contributor to my decaying attention span. I do not like this.

All of these thoughts have been vaguely floating around in my head for a while, but i have not been able to pull them down into concrete, logical processes of ideas (even now I imagine if you've read this it likely sounds scatterbrained). Recently a podcaster/youtube person whose thoughts and logical processes I greatly respect - although don't always agree with - has had similar thoughts that I found myself agreeing with. He goes by CGP Grey, and you can listen to what he has to say in this podcast.

If you're interested in what he has to say, he discusses it in pretty long form in his podcast here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dXLmkR-g6s" data-time="

And in a shorter (and pretty dramatized) video here if you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf2VxeIm1no" data-time="
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So I have my stance on the subject: I don't like what's happening to me
I have my hypothesis: listening to music/podcasts constantly is decaying my ability to think, and having instant access to social media and the internet via my phone is decaying my attention span
So next step is what do I about it?

I think it would be pretty extreme to just quit my computer and all media cold turkey, like someone wanting to get healthy shouldn't start by fasting for 3 days. But I do think I'm going to start taking some measures, like deleting media apps from my phone and only listening to media at certain times of certain days, like TV limitations for children. Now this isn't a foolproof plan, seeing as I ultimately have autonomy and control over my choices and can just consume media anyway, but I think that making my intentions known publicly, stating them to myself, and making it harder to consume media on an active basis, it should be able to be done. Not perfectly, but I've changed my lifestyle physically before, hopefully I can do it mentally now.

I guess what I'm trying to do is induce boredom and force my brain to rewire itself to not need constant input. Will this work? I have no idea.

Sorry for the wall of text, but this felt good to do. I'll tag some people who I think might be interested in this concept as a whole.

\_()_/

@Darkman124 @clearaflagrantj @Romulox28 @KILBOTz @FLUFFYGERM
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There are many distractions out there. We are bombarded with information. It's stimulation overload, which affects our ability to concretrate deeply on a single thing at a time.

It's especially true online when you can open up tabs and browse a million things at once.

I personally use the pomodoro technique at work to maintain deep focus. When the work is interesting it's easier. When it's not, pomodoros help with getting things done.

During my own time I let my mind wander a bit, as a form of relaxation. But when something interests me, be it an idea or a side project, deep focus comes easily. So maybe instead of limiting stimulation you just need to spend some time trying out new things until you find one or two things that are really interesting to you.

Although cutting back on social media is only a good thing!
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

So maybe instead of limiting stimulation you just need to spend some time trying out new things until you find one or two things that are really interesting to you.

I have plenty of thoughts and activities which I find very stimulating and interesting. I think it's just so much easier to consume other content someone else has created that I find myself falling into the trap of doing that instead of creating my own content or ideas.
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Drpooplol posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

So maybe instead of limiting stimulation you just need to spend some time trying out new things until you find one or two things that are really interesting to you.

I have plenty of thoughts and activities which I find very stimulating and interesting. I think it's just so much easier to consume other content someone else has created that I find myself falling into the trap of doing that instead of creating my own content or ideas.

That's fair. I've been working on a first book and it is definitely easier to "take breaks" that turn into binge watching my favorite Youtubers lol.

Discipline is hard!

There may be an app that can help. Like the SaveMyTime browser extension that tracks how much time you spend online and at which sites. I know that measuring my spending helped me cut back on waste a lot, so measuring time might have the same result since time is a far more precious resource.
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For me it's being inside all day. I don't do much social media but I just watch YouTube and read gamefaqs. It leaves me feeling like a self imposed prison. Just doing basic outdoor land maintenance I do a lot of thinking then.

I do like cgp gray. I'll catch the vid later
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KILBOTz posted...

For me it's being inside all day. I don't do much social media but I just watch YouTube and read gamefaqs. It leaves me feeling like a self imposed prison. Just doing basic outdoor land maintenance I do a lot of thinking then.

I do like cgp gray. I'll catch the vid later

I feel the same, doing monotonous tasks lends my mind time to wander, but I've filled this time with music and podcasts.

Btw I'm considering youtube and gamefaqs to be social media, those are two of my biggest time suckers
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*reads first few sentences of topic, gets bored and clicks topic list*
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Flawless punchline, TC.
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marthsheretoo posted...

Flawless punchline, TC.

Thank you, I'm a very funny boy
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Drpooplol posted...

KILBOTz posted...

For me it's being inside all day. I don't do much social media but I just watch YouTube and read gamefaqs. It leaves me feeling like a self imposed prison. Just doing basic outdoor land maintenance I do a lot of thinking then.

I do like cgp gray. I'll catch the vid later

I feel the same, doing monotonous tasks lends my mind time to wander, but I've filled this time with music and podcasts.

Btw I'm considering youtube and gamefaqs to be social media, those are two of my biggest time suckers

want to go buy a few thousand acres with me in Montana and work the land? We can bring in any other interested CEmen with cash too.

I am calling a guy today about buying his septic pumping business. Friend of a friend. I would rather pump shit than keep working in an office. It sucks my soul out.
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