Initially I began this post with an incredibly long sentence. Deliberately so. It would have been masterful at illustrating my main point. We can no longer focus or concentrate. But, then I realised, all that would achieve is that people would stop reading. So I haven’t started that way. Many of us are asking the question – Why can’t I focus?? So here are 5 reasons you can no longer concentrate and 3 ways to rebuild the skill. Here is the sentence. See how far you get before you start to lose your interest:
As technology has rapidly advanced and become increasingly integrated into our daily lives, our society has gradually lost its ability to focus for extended periods of time, as we are constantly bombarded by notifications, updates, and stimuli from our devices and the internet, leading to a constant state of distraction and the fragmentation of our attention spans, making it difficult to engage in deep, contemplative thought or fully immerse ourselves in the present moment without being pulled away by the incessant demands for our attention, resulting in a pervasive sense of restlessness, impatience, and anxiety that undermines our capacity for sustained concentration and hinders our ability to engage in meaningful activities and relationships, ultimately compromising our well-being and quality of life in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
That sentence was produced by chat GPT which is, of course, the next thing that will attack our ability to focus and concentrate.
Here is a pattern that I have noticed in my own life. My ability to concentrate on something, at least something that requires a degree of effort, has slowly been eroded. Once upon a time, I would sit happily in a chair for 4+ hours and read. I could focus on a book for that length of time. Now, after about 20 minutes I start to lose concentration. Sitting down to write these blog posts is harder than several years back. I can no longer concentrate with ease.
We all know that this is happening and we all have an intuitive understanding of why. In fact the AI generated sentence above spells it out for us. So here are 5 reasons why you can no longer focus.
1. Notifications & Distraction
Most of us now spend a significant part of our day on our devices. We work on computers, we read on our tablets or phones, our televisions are connected to the internet or we watch on our laptops, our bedside clock is now able to tell us the weather, our agenda for the day, read us our emails and alerts us to traffic conditions. In short, there is no place for us in normal everyday life where we are not connected and plugged in. And, all of this comes with notifications. Right now, my email app has a little red bubble on it with a 3 inside. I am trying to write but my mind is thinking – 3 new emails…I wonder what they are….I checked, they are from mailing lists that I do not read but haven’t bothered unsubscribing from yet. I have also received 4 WhatsApp messages whilst writing this and at this very second – my phone has just rung. A friend wants to talk me it would seem.
This impacts us in two ways. Firstly there is the direct break in our concentration. Every bleep, blurp, whistle and pop up causes our minds to switch off from whatever we are focussed on and switch over to whatever the notification might be, even if we ultimately ignored it, as I did my friend. But secondly, and perhaps more significantly over time, is the constant influx of novelty. Every notification is new and has the potential to be exciting and important. Every time we check messages, or emails, answer phone calls or whatever it is, it scratches that little itch that craves for something new. This is addictive I fear. And so, over time, the craving for a constant supply of new input grows and grows. This makes it more and more of an effort to concentrate on one thing for extended periods.
2. Short form content
But – that’s ok (n.b. it’s not ok, I’m just using a combo of sarcasm and hyperbole). We no longer need to give effort to concentrate on one thing for extended periods. So much of the content that comes our way now is what I would class as short form. I don’t just mean the 280 character tweet or the Instagram Reel, though that is certainly included. I would also include short books containing multiple short chapters. The point is that increasingly effort is being made to reduce down everything we need to engage with to shorter and shorter forms. So we no longer need to focus for an extended period of time. This lack of training/lack of use causes our ability to focus to atrophy. And if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.
3. High volume of and easy access to low effort entertainment
Again, this loss is totally fine and we don’t need to worry (again, sarcasm & hyperbole) – we have a near endless supply of low effort entertainment within easy reach. Not just entertainment, but educational material as well. We have Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, YouTube, and many more. Each boasting a multitude of whole series to binge watch and movies galore.
If we feel that’s too much of a frivolous use of time, then there are documentaries and educational YouTube channels that cover any and every topic we could think of. We no longer need to flex the muscle of our focus as we can sit in front of the telly for the rest of our lives and never run out of new stuff to watch. All of it fantastic. All of it low effort.
4. Social Media
This is where a lot of the above combines itself. We see everything coming together in one place and you can endlessly scroll for hours on end and never really read or take any of it in. Keeping yourself hooked without really giving any focus to it.
5. Lack of exposure to written material
Then lastly, we are no longer regularly engaged with hard material in written form. Stuff you really need to focus on and work at to understand.
The point is, that we lose our focus and our ability to concentrate because this is a skill we are being asked to use and train less and less. There are more ways for us to gain what we need without doing this.
I say gain what we need, I am actually not sure this is true. As Dex says to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Attack of the Clones, there is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Any one can copy and paste an article into Chat GPT and get a bullet point summary that then they regurgitate in their own modified form as their own content for a newsletter or tweet thread some months down the line. However, understanding, evaluation, critique and application of what we learn is the mark of truly growing in wisdom. Then, we combine and synthesise that with other things we learn from other sources, and our own life experience and perspective in order to actually provide original content of value.
This level of understanding of topics and subjects cannot be gained from AI generated bullet point summaries or the vast majority of short form content. They certainly help and have some value, but in and of themselves, on their own, they can never provide us with a deep understanding.
So, what is the solution? How do we rebuild this skill? I have 3 suggestions:
Deal with immediate distractions
You need to address any source of distraction that you can control. For most of us, the first place to look will be notifications. If you want to rebuild your ability to concentrate then do not permit things that you know will break your concentration. When you are working or reading or studying or whatever, turn on do not disturb, turn off all notifications on your devices, including all pop ups and bubbles. Otherwise, any and all of your efforts to build focus could be derailed by the equivalent of a crazed R2D2 that you carry in your pocket.
Train your focus – heavier weights and more reps
Set aside time each week to sit down in as distraction free an environment as you can and read. You may find this hard to do. As with any skill, it will take training. It is fine to start with simpler books and shorter lengths of time. Then you can build this up both in the complexity of what you are reading about and the length of time you give it. If you have never done a push up before then you aren’t going to be able to bosh out 100+ weighted push ups in one go. Therefore, do not expect to be able to sit down with Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion or Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology and read for 8 hours straight. On this, also remember that even the person with the most disciplined ability to focus will have their limit.
Train your focus – workout more often
Slowly, over time, seek to transfer time spent on social media or scrolling through news and even time spent watching the latest TV series over to time spent reading things in a more deliberate way. This could be articles you find, blog posts, books or the Bible. You need not eliminate YouTube and Disney Plus entirely, that would be silly. The aim would be to change your default option when you are not sure what to do. When you find yourself waiting for a bus that is delayed, read an article instead of scrolling through instagram or checking email. When you visit the facilities, you can read instead of playing Hungry Shark. When you are in bed and cannot sleep, a book or an audio book is better than social media.
These are just 3 ways to guard and rebuild your ability to concentrate. And whilst reading may not be our work, building our focus and concentration muscle through reading will help us focus on our work, be less distracted in life and generally make us more effective. If you would like some ideas on what to consider reading then check out these posts:
Also – check out my books page for recommendations.
What are some of your ways to do this? Drop them into the comments below and let me and others know what else might work.
