Demand for your Attention

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We live in a world where everyone seems to have something to say almost every time. Whether verbally or via the various telecommunication platforms that our digital era is identified by, it seems like people are always speaking. In our modern culture where speaking out and speaking up are regarded to be avenues to solving the world’s problems, we’re left wonder if that is all that it takes. Could there be something that we’re missing?

These days it’s seems like as soon as we wake up, there already are thousands of opinions waiting for our attention, maybe even hundreds of thousands. Millions perhaps? Well, according to recent data, there are over 300 billion emails that are sent and received every day. Yes, you heard me right, billion! Furthermore, the number of daily posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all in the hundreds of millions. While this is not an exact indication of how much information every individual person has to digest, these statistics give us a picture of just how much information our world as a whole has at its disposal on a daily basis. 

The access to information in this age has been on a rapid incline. Technological advancements have ensured that we have access to even the information that we don’t ask for. Many people wonder what to do with this information, if anything can be done that is. Are we able to take it all in?

I was having a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine a few weeks ago. The conversation centred around the question, Is technology ruining our attention span? I’d like to extend that question to you. What do you think? Let me know at the end of this post. I cannot remember what my verbatim response to this question was but from everything that I had to say, my conclusion was that it’s not technology per say that is ruining our attention span but instead how we consume it. I think I still stand by this conclusion. 

Maybe it’s clear by now that I am not one to demonize something in its entirety just because it may have some questionable features. I have grown up in such a way that I am able to look at something and objectively recognise both the pros and the cons. I make this caveat because I am aware that in recent times there has been debate about whether the media platforms that we know, and love are intentionally designed to keep us addicted. I have my opinion on that as you may also, but that’s a story for another day. Honestly, I feel like regardless of whether it is or isn’t true, ultimately, we have the final say on what we give our attention to. That’s the crux of this post, our attention. 

I believe we all have an idea of what constitutes paying attention. To me it is the simple idea of being able to focus on one thing at a given time. I’m sure the discussion that I quoted having with my friend is starting to make sense in this context. With the overload of information that is presented before us on a daily basis, how can one pay attention to one thing at a time? What a loaded question. 

It is not surprising that the increase in the amount of information that we have before us has left us feeling the need to take in as much as possible. I personally feel like this is what can contribute to the decline of our attention span. The fact that instead of immersing ourselves in one thing at a time, we instead cruse through bits and bytes of information. Something about our consumption of information has to change, right?

I know that I have talked a lot about media in this post, but human beings lie at the very heart of what I am trying to communicate here. Behind the billions of emails and the hundreds of millions of social media posts are people that are trying to get our attention. More specifically it is the people that deserve our attention that matter in this context. We ought to examine ourselves and ask ourselves if we are able to give our attention to the people and things that matter most. 

So, how can one pay attention to one thing at a time?

The answers to this question are not simple. I mean I myself for one am still seeking, finding and being corrected on any wisdom that I gain in relation to this subject. Which is why I’ll just come out and say that you just have to make an attempt at it. If it fails, make another attempt. At each point, put aside anything that limits your ability to focus on that one thing. Eventually, you will experience what is commonly referred to as the flow state. 

The flow state is a concept that has been made popular by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura and describes the feeling of being fully immersed in what one is doing, under the right conditions. This is a concept that is widely preached by productivity gurus and while I often don’t subscribe to most of their advice, I recognise the benefits of the flow state. This is because I am for anything that helps people give their full undivided attention to the people and things that matter most. 

It’s a no brainer that the demand for our attention in this digital age is high. Often higher than we are able to cope with. This is why the responsibility of deciding what and who we give our attention should not in any way be taken lightly. I don’t think the amount of information at our disposal will decrease any time soon. So it only makes sense that instead, how we consume that information adjusts overtime. 

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