Your guide to the attention recession
The ‘attention economy’ has been called into question in light of struggles with maintaining focus in today’s increasingly busy world. This way of thinking about attention goes beyond psychological focus, including the political and social aspects involved with attention. While every generation has had fears that technological advancement would bring about certain doom, i.e. the Luddite destruction of weaving looms in fear that they would steal their jobs, technology poses a serious threat to the human attention span in the modern day.
The brain can only process one or two thoughts at a time in an efficient manner. The idea of multitasking efficiently is an illusion of completing multiple tasks at once created by the brain’s seamless transition from one exercise to the next. This process of switching makes one slower because of the time it takes to reconfigure oneself with the previous task that was being completed. This phenomenon is called the ‘switch-cost effect.’ Critics of this notion question why we need to focus on being as efficient as possible, which hinges on the idea of time and our attention being scarce resources.
However, efficiency is not the only trade-off in attempting to do multiple activities simultaneously. Information overload is another important aspect of understanding the threat to attention span. This concept arose in the 1970s amid fears of the effects that increased communications and access to information would have on the population. Although the vast majority of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Institute in 2016 said that they did not feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that they had access to, Dr. Earl Miller theorizes that many people believe that they can multitask, when, in fact, they are cognitively juggling multiple tasks.
There are a series of possible solutions to the problem of attention and the addiction to short-term, instant gratification dopamine loops. Some have come in the form of more digital applications. While seemingly counterintuitive, these apps track time spent on apps, and even have features that can lock users out of certain activities. These actions are rooted in the logic of informing people of their choice in partaking in this loop to empower users to begin to make different choices.
While individual actions can have a positive impact on the lives of those who are able to successfully implement them, they do not get to the root of the problem. Many people consider poor attention spans to be a personal failure and internalise blame for this issue. According to a leading scholar, James Williams, this focus on the self is misplaced. Williams is not the only former employee of a large technology company to speak out on the harmful effects of new media on attention spans. A Facebook executive expressed guilt for aiding in the creation of short-term feedback loops which were driven by dopamine.
An individual cannot solve a systemic issue; there needs to be a cultural reckoning with the attention economy and not just as it pertains to productivity and the bottom line. There needs to be consideration of what the dopamine epidemic means for future generations, primarily the youngest and most vulnerable. The youth, more than any other group, cannot be expected to make the curbing of negative behavioural patterns a matter of personal responsibility. This process has been dubbed by some “cultural indoctrination” into hyper-stimulating, fast-paced environments.
‘Tiktok brain’ is a phenomenon which addresses how short-form videos negatively impact the attention span of people who consume too much of such content. Children are particularly at risk because an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex has a harder time adjusting back to a slow paced analog world after being overexposed to the fast paced world of digital short form media. University students are also at risk as the prefrontal cortex does not develop until around 25 years of age, and the average UofT student is around 20 years of age.
At UofT, students seeking help with ‘brainrot’, dopamine addiction, or other attention issues have support. One can engage with the MindFIT program to learn meditation techniques to increase focus. Alternatively, health services offer same-day counseling, short-term intensive therapy, evidence-based group therapy, counseling for BIPOC students, and help navigating access to care outside the school. However, the strongest tool that we have as students is each other. We have access to a community of people with shared interests and issues which is a powerful tool to rally around for the purpose of creating positive change.
