Latest news with #attentionSpan
The National
04-07-2025
- Health
- The National
Struggling to concentrate? Experts' tips for reclaiming focus
Most people won't make it to the end of this article. If you've come even this far, you're clearly intrigued by the subject matter, but the estimated reading time of nearly four minutes is five times longer than the average attention span today. Every single day, most of us glance at our smartwatch while talking to someone, pick up our phone as we watch a TV show, or scroll through social media when we have a couple of minutes to spare. Not only is technology distracting many from the real world, but even when they're logged in, they dedicate just a few seconds to each new nugget of information before succumbing to the draw of another tab. All of this points to not only an alarming overuse of gadgets, but also the equally troubling inability to focus. Why our attention spans have waned 'There is no doubt that technology has profoundly affected our ability to focus in the short term,' says Rami Shtieh, a mental health practitioner at BodyTree Studio, Abu Dhabi. 'Our collective humanity is subject to a constant blitz of notifications from smartphones, emails and social media alerts, which results in fragmented attention that makes sustained focus increasingly difficult.' With so much at our fingertips in an instant, our brains are being conditioned to expect constant stimulation, moving away from a sustained attention span. In her book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity, psychologist and attention expert Dr Gloria Mark notes that in 2004, the average attention span on any screen was two and a half minutes, decreasing to 75 seconds in 2012 and just 47 seconds in recent years. 'This reduction is largely driven by the way digital platforms are designed – to be stimulating, rapid and rewarding,' says Dr Lara Foresi, psychiatrist at Thrive Wellbeing Centre, Dubai. 'Social media, for example, encourages fast scrolling, short video formats and notifications that constantly pull our attention away. These platforms capitalise on intermittent reinforcement, which makes users repeatedly check for updates, likes or new content. 'As a result, our brains are increasingly wired to crave novelty and rapid information delivery, making it harder to engage in slower, more reflective cognitive processes such as reading a book, having a deep, uninterrupted conversation or even watching a full-length film.' The impact of this goes beyond the superficial, such as skipping songs or accidentally doom-scrolling – it can also be detrimental to our wellbeing. How lost focus can affect wellbeing 'Cognitive overload and constant distractions can lead to chronic stress,' says Dr Muhamed Hamza, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia, Dubai. 'As people struggle to maintain focus, feelings of incompetence and frustration can arise, exacerbating mental health issues. Evidence indicates that prolonged difficulties with focus can lead to struggles such as chronic anxiety and depressive symptoms.' Devika Mankani, psychologist at The Hundred Wellness Centre, Dubai, adds: 'When our attention is fragmented, we lose more than productivity. We lose presence. Emotionally, it can erode the richness of our relationships as a distracted mind rarely finds rest.' Another long-term effect, say experts, is on our sense of self. 'As the ability to be fully present erodes, so too does our capacity to connect inwardly with ourselves,' says Dr Enrica Verrengia, specialist psychiatrist at BPS Clinic, Dubai. 'People living in states of chronic distraction frequently report a sense of disconnection from meaning, from purpose and from the values that once grounded them. This isn't merely a psychological effect; it reflects a deeper breakdown in the continuity of inner life. Studies have shown that excessive media multitasking is associated with a fading sense of identity, a loss of clarity about the self and a growing feeling of existential emptiness.' Tips and tactics for reclaiming focus To take action, it's essential to recognise what constitutes a chronic lack of focus. Natural distractibility is a part of being human, and a person's focus will shift throughout the day depending on various factors, such as the sleep duration and quality, hunger, interest in a task and external diversions. However, when lowered focus begins to affect not only your work and relationships, but also your overall happiness, it's time to take action. Eliminating technology isn't realistic, so adding steps to your daily routine may help instead. A daily mindfulness practice is a good place to start. 'Research consistently shows that mindfulness practices, such as meditation, can significantly improve focus and attention,' says Hamza. 'Even short periods of mindfulness training can enhance sustained attention and cognitive control. Incorporating daily mindfulness can help retrain the brain to stay focused for longer periods.' Recognising situations and times when inattention is likely to occur is key to removing the temptation of what might distract you from work, family or personal time. Time-blocking, or carving out specific parts of the day to focus on particular tasks, can help create a more organised approach, along with swapping multitasking for monotasking and focusing on one thing at a time. 'Implement structured work periods,' says Shtieh. 'Use tactics such as the Pomodoro Technique, where you work for 25 minutes followed by a five-minute break. This approach has been shown to boost productivity by providing regular opportunities to recharge.' Additionally, the Deep Work technique, introduced by Cal Newport in his book of the same name, advocates setting aside distraction-free blocks of time, usually 60 to 90 minutes, dedicated to cognitively demanding tasks. 'Planning these sessions daily and treating them as non-negotiable helps reinforce their value,' says Foresi. 'Ending each session with a clear goal or stopping point ensures progress and maintains motivation.' When it comes to technology, turning off notifications and setting screentime limits can help you regain control. Additionally, physical activity has been shown to improve cognitive function and attention in both the short and long term. Mankani says: 'We don't need to abandon technology, but we do need to renegotiate our relationship with it consciously, compassionately and consistently. Focus is not lost – it's simply waiting to be reclaimed.'
Fast Company
02-07-2025
- General
- Fast Company
I quit TikTok—and got my attention span back
For a few days, my finger would hover over the TikTok hole on my home screen. But it was all for naught: There was nothing there to click. TikTok debuted at exactly the wrong time for me. I downloaded the short-form video app during my junior year of high school, just as in-person activities shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic and my life dissolved into an endless loop of virtual lectures. The infinite scroll was comforting—almost intoxicating. Before long, I was spending multiple hours a day on the platform, with most conversations among friends revolving around which TikToks we'd recently liked. In January 2025, I deleted the app for good. Former President Joe Biden's TikTok ban was looming, and I assumed my friends would be booted off the platform soon enough. It felt like the perfect moment: I could reclaim my media habits, lengthen my attention span, and finally break up with short-form video. Six months later, I have no plans to re-download it. Deleting TikTok saved my attention span For years, I was a double-screener. Fueled by a steady diet of brain-rot TikToks, my eyes would drift toward a second device the moment I started a film or TV show. I tried crocheting and adult coloring books—anything to keep my hands busy while focusing on what was in front of me. Still, I'd grow bored and restless. Eventually, I'd cave, scrolling through X (or worse, TikTok on mute) while the movie played. There are dozens of reasons to delete TikTok—from concerns over Chinese data privacy to simply reclaiming a few hours each day. But for me, the main goal was even simpler: I wanted to reengage with long-form media. And that effort has mostly been successful. I read more now, and watch movies—often with my phone in another room. Sometimes, I even listen to a podcast without touching my screen. Rebuilding my attention span required more than just deleting TikTok. I committed 2025 to investing in my focus. I bought print subscriptions to The New Yorker, New York magazine, and The Atlantic so I could read long-form journalism away from a screen. I subscribed to the Criterion Channel to watch deeper, more thoughtful films than the typical Netflix churn. I bought a Kindle. But I haven't sworn off social media entirely. (No, I did not buy one of those janky ' dumbphones ' or leave my phone mounted to the wall like a landline.) I still spend more time scrolling on X than I'd like, and I'll browse Instagram once every few hours. (Just no Reels: That breaks the short-form ban.) I'm also not uniquely consuming high-brow long-form media: The Real Housewives is still my TV fix of choice. But for the first time since early high school, I can watch a movie without reaching for my phone. That feels like a win. How I warded off TikTok FOMO When I deleted TikTok, my biggest fear was losing cultural literacy. I didn't care about the dances or memes, but I worried about missing out on the latest joke or buzzy TV show. TikTok's walled garden and cultural saturation among Gen Z can make it feel essential, as if not having it means missing something crucial. From the outside, though, I've realized most TikToks are just sludge and noise. I read enough news to know what's trending in film and TV. When I want a thoughtful take, I turn to critics or the occasional YouTube video essay. I don't need a 17-year-old explaining why everyone on Love Island USA is crazy. I remember the first time a friend referenced something I didn't recognize. It was March, and we were making dinner at my college place when he said, 'What the helly.' I thought he'd misspoken; he assumed I hadn't heard him. Turns out, it was a TikTok trend that had taken off after I'd deleted the app. I had feared losing a shared language with my friends, but in that moment, I didn't really care what the reference meant. I just moved on. These days, my friends are more annoyed than I am about my TikTok-free life. They still send me screen recordings of TikToks that remind them of me, usually followed by complaints about the extra effort.
The National
19-06-2025
- Health
- The National
Lost focus is affecting our wellbeing - is it too late to reclaim it?
Most people won't make it to the end of this article. If you've come even this far, you're clearly intrigued by the subject matter, but the estimated reading time of nearly four minutes is five times longer than the average attention span today. Every single day, most of us glance at our smartwatch while talking to someone, pick up our phone as we watch a TV show, or scroll through social media when we have a couple of minutes to spare. Not only is technology distracting many from the real world, but even when they're logged in, they dedicate just a few seconds to each new nugget of information before succumbing to the draw of another tab. All of this points to not only an alarming overuse of gadgets, but also the equally troubling inability to focus. Why our attention spans have waned 'There is no doubt that technology has profoundly affected our ability to focus in the short term,' says Rami Shtieh, a mental health practitioner at BodyTree Studio, Abu Dhabi. 'Our collective humanity is subject to a constant blitz of notifications from smartphones, emails and social media alerts, which results in fragmented attention that makes sustained focus increasingly difficult.' With so much at our fingertips in an instant, our brains are being conditioned to expect constant stimulation, moving away from a sustained attention span. In her book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity, psychologist and attention expert Dr Gloria Mark notes that in 2004, the average attention span on any screen was two and a half minutes, decreasing to 75 seconds in 2012 and just 47 seconds in recent years. 'This reduction is largely driven by the way digital platforms are designed – to be stimulating, rapid and rewarding,' says Dr Lara Foresi, psychiatrist at Thrive Wellbeing Centre, Dubai. 'Social media, for example, encourages fast scrolling, short video formats and notifications that constantly pull our attention away. These platforms capitalise on intermittent reinforcement, which makes users repeatedly check for updates, likes or new content. 'As a result, our brains are increasingly wired to crave novelty and rapid information delivery, making it harder to engage in slower, more reflective cognitive processes such as reading a book, having a deep, uninterrupted conversation or even watching a full-length film.' The impact of this goes beyond the superficial, such as skipping songs or accidentally doom-scrolling – it can also be detrimental to our wellbeing. How lost focus can affect wellbeing 'Cognitive overload and constant distractions can lead to chronic stress,' says Dr Muhamed Hamza, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia, Dubai. 'As people struggle to maintain focus, feelings of incompetence and frustration can arise, exacerbating mental health issues. Evidence indicates that prolonged difficulties with focus can lead to struggles such as chronic anxiety and depressive symptoms.' Devika Mankani, psychologist at The Hundred Wellness Centre, Dubai, adds: 'When our attention is fragmented, we lose more than productivity. We lose presence. Emotionally, it can erode the richness of our relationships as a distracted mind rarely finds rest.' Another long-term effect, say experts, is on our sense of self. 'As the ability to be fully present erodes, so too does our capacity to connect inwardly with ourselves,' says Dr Enrica Verrengia, specialist psychiatrist at BPS Clinic, Dubai. 'People living in states of chronic distraction frequently report a sense of disconnection from meaning, from purpose and from the values that once grounded them. This isn't merely a psychological effect; it reflects a deeper breakdown in the continuity of inner life. Studies have shown that excessive media multitasking is associated with a fading sense of identity, a loss of clarity about the self and a growing feeling of existential emptiness.' Tips and tactics for reclaiming focus To take action, it's essential to recognise what constitutes a chronic lack of focus. Natural distractibility is a part of being human, and a person's focus will shift throughout the day depending on various factors, such as the sleep duration and quality, hunger, interest in a task and external diversions. However, when lowered focus begins to affect not only your work and relationships, but also your overall happiness, it's time to take action. Eliminating technology isn't realistic, so adding steps to your daily routine may help instead. A daily mindfulness practice is a good place to start. 'Research consistently shows that mindfulness practices, such as meditation, can significantly improve focus and attention,' says Hamza. 'Even short periods of mindfulness training can enhance sustained attention and cognitive control. Incorporating daily mindfulness can help retrain the brain to stay focused for longer periods.' Recognising situations and times when inattention is likely to occur is key to removing the temptation of what might distract you from work, family or personal time. Time-blocking, or carving out specific parts of the day to focus on particular tasks, can help create a more organised approach, along with swapping multitasking for monotasking and focusing on one thing at a time. 'Implement structured work periods,' says Shtieh. 'Use tactics such as the Pomodoro Technique, where you work for 25 minutes followed by a five-minute break. This approach has been shown to boost productivity by providing regular opportunities to recharge.' Additionally, the Deep Work technique, introduced by Cal Newport in his book of the same name, advocates setting aside distraction-free blocks of time, usually 60 to 90 minutes, dedicated to cognitively demanding tasks. 'Planning these sessions daily and treating them as non-negotiable helps reinforce their value,' says Foresi. 'Ending each session with a clear goal or stopping point ensures progress and maintains motivation.' When it comes to technology, turning off notifications and setting screentime limits can help you regain control. Additionally, physical activity has been shown to improve cognitive function and attention in both the short and long term. Mankani says: 'We don't need to abandon technology, but we do need to renegotiate our relationship with it consciously, compassionately and consistently. Focus is not lost – it's simply waiting to be reclaimed.'
Geek Culture
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
Singapore Student Wins Apple's Swift Student Challenge With Focus App Concept, Is Invited To WWDC, Gets Attention Of Tim Cook
Concerned with short attention spans and the need for instant gratification among the younger generation, 16-year-old St. Joseph's Institution student Jatin Rakesh opted to submit a concept app that focuses on keeping people's attention span. What he didn't expect was to not only win Apple's Swift Student Challenge and be among one of 50 Distinguished Winners globally, but he also received an invitation to attend the recently concluded Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and got noticed by Apple CEO Tim Cook in the process. Jatin Rakesh (top row, 10th from the right) posing next to Apple CEO Tim Cook and fellow Distinguished Winners. 'I wasn't expecting to meet Tim Cook as part of our tour, but was pleasantly surprised when he joined the Distinguished Winners' group photo next to the iconic rainbow arch at Apple Park,' remarked the excited student of his week-long experience visiting Apple Park in Cupertino, California. 'I had butterflies in my stomach when he decided to stand next to me and put his arm around me for the photo! Meeting someone as respected and inspiring as Tim is a true bucket list moment I will never forget.' And he has his mother to thank for this journey, as she was the one who pushed him to start his coding journey, which began when he was just 11 years old, with block coding and subsequently, syntax coding with the help of a private tutor. These two coding structures are concepts that even the average adult will struggle to comprehend, but it was his mother who encouraged him to do so. 'At first, I joined reluctantly,' Jatin recalls, 'but as I went through the stages of coding, I learnt that coding is so much more than clacking keys – it made me realise how it can empower people's lives.' And that empowerment led him towards Apple's Swift Student Challenge, a prestigious international competition that began in 2020 with the goal to support and recognise young coders and their creative ability. His winning concept app was among the 350 winning global submissions for the year, with his exceptional work further earning him an invite to Apple Park. His winning entry, Attention Tractor , is a short story-based simulation game featuring a hamster named Theo who has trouble focusing. The app playground, which refers to conceptual prototypes that are not full apps, includes a series of mini-games alongside its simple narrative that encourage the fostering of positive habits to improve one's attention span, such as setting an early bedtime, exercising active listening, as well as the importance of healthy eating and meditation. Attention Tractor On a personal level, the idea stemmed from wanting to help his generation of peers focus, tackling an apt problem faced by many in this fast-paced digital age of short-form content like 30-second TikToks. It also hit closer to home, of wanting to help his younger sister after witnessing its negative effects first-hand. 'My entry was inspired by the insight that my generation tends to have low attention spans.' he explains, 'With the proliferation of social media, and according to my research, this can negatively impact long-term focus, concentration, and mental health, and can worsen if left unaddressed over time.' 'I also wanted to address this issue because I wanted to see how I could help my younger sister manage her short attention span, as I've seen it affect her in various ways.' Attention Tracor After two previous attempts at participating in the Swift Student Challenge, he took the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and following two months of hard work, his efforts earned him an all-expenses-paid trip to WWDC 2025, where he made connections with global app creators and shared in their experiences. 'I was able to learn more about accessibility and how the user experience on Apple's ecosystem can make people's lives better.' says the young developer, 'The experience really showed me the diversity of the global developer community and reminded me of what we all have in common – to make people's lives easier and more efficient through code and the apps we create.' 'Being around experienced developers and other Distinguished Winners, we discussed ways to improve our apps, share goals, and learn more from each other about Apple's technologies,' adds the former Kranji Secondary School student, who has quickly taken in the feedback received on his code, along with ideas that have made him rethink how he presents himself and his apps. While studying at Kranji Secondary School, Jatin, along with three of his friends, developed a travel planner app, Journify . 'That's what makes being part of the developer community so amazing – you know you are not alone, and that there will always be other smart people with better capabilities and ideas to help you out, because we all share a vision of using technology to make people's lives better.' While his coding and app creation journey has only just started, Jatin is fast realising that coding can play a big role in his future. 'My passion for coding has continued to grow – programming a website is only bound by my imagination, and the freedom of coding has given my life a whole different meaning and allowed me to get creative.' So, what's next for the budding app developer? For now, exams are his main priority, although he hopes to continue working on Attention Tractor, evolving it from an app playground to a full-fledged app that can benefit countless others. 'There is one thing I'm certain of, though, and that is making a positive impact in another person's life and building apps that help the community benefit and grow. My biggest goal in life is to be a good human being and be remembered as someone who used technology to empower people and help others in their daily lives.' Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. Apple Singapore swift student challenge wwdc WWDC 2025
New York Times
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Is Biography the One A.I.-Proof Genre?
In our age of distraction, the arts appear to be responding in kind, shrinking and streamlining themselves to capture what they can of our withering attention spans. . Pop songs are down a full minute from the 1990s. Television seasons are getting shorter. Children's books, which averaged 190 pages in the 1930s, tap out at 60 pages today. Adult best sellers have lopped off about 50 pages in the last decade alone, and novels, in particular, seem ever sleeker and more straightforward, more dialogue-driven and less cognitively demanding, with smaller casts, a single story strand, a single point of view. In the midst of such minimalism, at least one form bucks the trend. Biography continues to cut a billowing 19th-century profile, trailing its footnotes and family trees, tipping the scales at nearly 1,000 pages — fat, splendid and wholly implacable in the face of our diminishing stamina. Biography feels perennially robust and continues to sell steadily — this year's offerings include fresh assessments of the well-worn lives of Mark Twain, Paul Gauguin and Gertrude Stein, and even a biography of a biography: 'Ellmann's Joyce,' by Zachary Leader, an account of Richard Ellmann's life of James Joyce from 1959, long held to be the genre's gold standard. It was biography, according to Gertrude Stein, that truly fulfilled the novel's zeal for showing the full sweep of a life, and the genre has stayed faithful to its obsessive interest in character and its formation, the labyrinth of human motive, all those the crooked paths through which experience yields insight, insight shapes psychology and psychology ripens into fate. But biography's stolid facade conceals a sensitive, turbulent history. Biography alters as we do, as our conceptions of motive evolve, as theories of personality float into fashion or fade away. It offers a snapshot of our working notions of selfhood, of what we hunger to assert and what we are not yet prepared to know. What lay at the root of D.H. Lawrence's rages? His harsh upbringing? His scorn for inhibition? That little stowaway, Mycobacterium tuberculosis? Over the years, Lawrence's biographers have made cases for all three. Why did Sylvia Plath kill herself? Was it an act of despair, revenge or desperate agency? Every age seems to need, and produce, its own biographies — we reportedly have 15,000 books about Lincoln alone — not just as certain archives become available but as certain questions and approaches become possible. Take the case of James Baldwin. The writer's estate has been fiercely protective of his correspondence, forbidding biographers from quoting even a word of it. In 2017, the archive was acquired by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library, and the bulk of his letters, along with rarely viewed notes and manuscripts, were made public. In due time, new biographies have arrived, drawing from this material. Two will be published this year,: 'Baldwin: A Love Story,' by Nicholas Boggs, and 'James Baldwin: The Life Album,' by Magdalena J. Zaborowska. Both books stitch the story of his private life, long relegated to footnotes if not outright omitted. Both books capture Baldwin at unseen angles; neither concerns itself with offering a definitive portrait. 'I excavate the parts of your life that have been obscured by some readers, scholars, even your family,' Zaborowska writes, addressing Baldwin. 'I center your erotic and sexual love for men (and some women), your domestic life, and your authorship as forms of imaginative activism.' The biography of today recoils from stuffing its subject into a straitjacket of interpretation, with all contradictions smoothly reconciled into a unified self. Instead we find an emphasis on the fragility and provisionality of identity, on performance, on motive being mysterious and many-tentacled. 'Baldwin seemed to be composed of carefully crafted personae, woven like armor,' Zaborowska writes. (Such tact in that 'seemed.') The veteran biographer Hermione Lee has said that she admires how her subjects, like Tom Stoppard, preserve their privacy, how they elude her. In 'The Power of Adrienne Rich' (2020), Hilary Holladay considers how Rich was elusive to herself — 'the absence of a fully knowable self was her deepest wound and great prod.' In Katherine Bucknell's biography, 'Christopher Isherwood Inside Out' (2024), we learn Isherwood was also consumed by this search 'for a singular self.' Candy Darling, one of the stars of Andy Warhol's Factory, was 'always acting,' Cynthia Carr reports in 'Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar' (2024). 'I don't know which role to play,' she once wrote in an unsent letter, which trails off. 'I would like to live with someone whom I could. …' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
