What the internet does to our attention: the habit of distraction

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Because of the internet, we have become more scattered and can hardly concentrate on one thing. Tony Schwartz, journalist, writer and founder of The Energy Project, demonstrates how to cope with internet addiction and regain mindfulness.

One evening in early summer, I opened the book and found myself rereading the same paragraph over and over, half a dozen times, until I came to the disappointing conclusion that it was useless to continue. I simply could not concentrate.

I was shocked. Throughout my life, reading books has been a source of deep pleasure, comfort and knowledge for me. Now the stacks of books that I regularly purchase are growing higher and higher on the bedside table, looking at me with mute reproach.

Instead of reading books, I spent too much time online: I checked how traffic on my company's website was changing, bought colorful socks from Gilt and Rue La La (although I already have more than enough of them), and sometimes even, I confess, looked through photos in articles with seductive headlines like "Clumsy children of the stars who grew up to be beautiful."

During my workday, I checked my mail more often than necessary, and spent more time than in previous years, eagerly seeking out updates on the presidential campaign.

We willingly come to terms with the loss of concentration and attention, the fragmentation of thoughts in exchange for an abundance of intriguing or at least entertaining information. Nicholas Carr is the author of Dummy. What the Internet is doing to our brains"

Addiction is a relentless craving for a substance or action that eventually becomes so intrusive that it interferes with everyday life. By this definition, almost everyone I know is addicted to the Internet to one degree or another. It can be argued that the Web is a form of socially permitted drug addiction.

According to a recent poll, the average office worker spends about 6 hours a day on email. At the same time, it does not even take into account all the time spent online, for example, shopping, searching for information or communicating on social networks.

Our brain's addiction to novelty, constant stimulation, and unhindered enjoyment leads to compulsive cycles. As laboratory rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to achieve pleasure.

I learned about this for a very long time. I started writing about this 20 years ago. I explain this to my clients every day. But I never even imagined that it would affect me personally.

Denial is another sign of addiction. There is no greater obstacle to healing than the endless pursuit of logical justification for your compulsive, uncontrollable behavior. I've always been able to control my emotions. But last winter I traveled a lot while trying to run a growing consulting business. At the beginning of summer, it suddenly dawned on me that I was no longer in control of myself as well as before.

In addition to spending a lot of time on the Internet and reducing the stability of attention, I noticed that I had stopped eating right. I drank soda beyond measure. Too often I drank a couple of alcoholic cocktails in the evening. I stopped doing exercise every day, even though I have been doing it all my life.

Under the influence of this, I came up with an incredibly ambitious plan. Over the next 30 days, I had to make an attempt to get these bad habits back on track, one by one. It was a tremendous impulse. I recommend the exact opposite approach to my clients every day. But I realized that all these habits are related to each other. And I can get rid of them.

The main problem is that we humans have a very limited supply of will and discipline. We have a better chance of success if we try to change one habit at a time. Ideally, a new action should be repeated at the same time every day so that it becomes familiar and requires less and less energy to maintain.

I have made some progress in 30 days. Despite the great temptation, I stopped drinking alcohol and soda (three months have passed since then, and soda has not returned to my diet). I gave up sugar and fast carbs like chips and pasta. I started to exercise regularly again.

I totally failed on one thing: spending less time on the Internet.

To limit the amount of time I spend online, I set a goal to check my email only 3 times a day: when I wake up, during lunch, and when I get home at the end of the day. On the first day, I lasted several hours after the morning check, and then completely broke down. I was like a sugar addict trying to resist the temptation to eat a cupcake while working at a bakery.

On the first morning, my resolve was shattered by the feeling that I needed to send someone an urgent letter. “If I just write it and hit Submit,” I told myself, “it won't count as time spent on the Internet.”

I did not take into account that while I was writing my own letter, several new ones would come to my email. None of them demanded an immediate response, but it was impossible to resist the temptation to look in what was written in the first message with such a tempting subject line. And in the second. And in the third.

In a matter of seconds, I was back in a vicious circle. The next day, I gave up trying to limit my online life. Instead, I began to confront the simpler things: soda, alcohol, and sugar.

Nevertheless, I decided to revisit the problem of the Internet later. A few weeks after the end of my 30-day experiment, I left town for a month on vacation. It was a great opportunity to focus your limited willpower on one goal: freeing yourself from the internet and regaining control of your attention.

I've already taken the first step towards recovery: admitting my inability to completely disconnect from the Internet. Now is the time for cleansing. I interpreted the traditional second step in my own way - to believe that a higher power will help me return to common sense. A higher power was my 30-year-old daughter, who turned off e-mail and the Internet on my phone and laptop. Unburdened with a lot of knowledge in this area, I just did not know how to connect them back.

But I stayed in touch via SMS. Looking back, I can say that I relied too much on the Internet. Only a small number of people in my life have communicated with me via SMS. Since I was on vacation, it was mostly my family members, and the messages were usually about where we meet during the day.

Over the next few days, I was tormented by the restriction, and my biggest hunger for Google was to find an answer to a sudden question. But after a few days offline, I felt more relaxed, less anxious, could concentrate better, and stopped missing the instant but short-lived stimulation. What happened to my brain was exactly what I hoped was going to happen: It began to calm down.

I took with me on vacation more than a dozen books, varying in complexity and volume. I started with a short nonfiction, and when I felt calmer and more focused, I began to move towards a more voluminous popular science literature. Finally I got to the book “The King of All Diseases. Biography of Cancer”by the American oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. Before that, the book had been on my bookshelf for almost five years.

When the week passed, I could already free myself from my need for facts as a source of pleasure. I moved on to novels and ended my vacation avidly reading Jonathan Franzen's 500-page novel, Cleanliness, sometimes for hours at a time.

I went back to work and, of course, went back online. The internet is still here, and it will continue to consume a significant portion of my attention. My goal now is to find a balance between time spent with the Internet and time without it.

I got the feeling that I can control it. I react less to stimuli and plan more on what to spend my attention on. When I'm online, I try not to surf the Web thoughtlessly. As often as possible, I ask myself, "Is this really what I would like to do?" If the answer is no, I ask the following question: "What can I do to feel more productive, satisfied, or relaxed?"

I use this approach in my business in order to fully focus my attention on important matters. In addition, I continue to read books, not only because I love them, but also to maintain attention.

I have a long-standing ritual to decide the day before what is the most important thing I can do the next morning. This is the first thing I do almost every day, from 60 to 90 minutes without interruption. After that, I take a break of 10-15 minutes to relax and replenish my strength.

If during the day I have one more task that requires full concentration, I go offline for the duration of its completion. In the evening, when I go to the bedroom, I always leave all my devices in the other room.

Finally, I now find it necessary to take a digital-free vacation at least once a year. I can afford to take a few weeks of rest, but from my own experience I was convinced that even one week without the Internet is enough for a deep recovery.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking about the last day of my vacation. I was sitting in a restaurant with my family when a man of about forty with a little adorable daughter of 4-5 years old came in there.

Almost immediately, the man turned his attention to his smartphone. Meanwhile, his daughter was just a whirlwind of energy and restlessness: she got up on a chair, walked around the table, waving her arms and making faces - she did everything to attract the attention of her father.

Apart from short moments, she did not achieve success in this and after some time gave up these sad attempts. The silence was deafening.