‘A goldfish technology’: Are there any advantages to digital distraction?

We are within the midst of a battle for our consideration. Our gadgets have hijacked our brains and destroyed our collective potential to pay attention – to the extent that we’re even seeing the emergence of a “goldfish technology”. That, at the least, is the story that’s more and more being instructed. However ought to we be being attentive to it?

Journalist Johann Hari’s new guide, Stolen Focus, has simply joined a refrain of voices lamenting the eye disaster of the digital age. His and different latest books replicate, and maybe gas, a public notion that our focus is underneath assault.

Certainly, in new analysis by the Coverage Institute and Centre for Consideration Research at King’s Faculty London, we discovered some clear considerations.

Confronted with the sorts of findings that arose from our analysis, it’s simple to be nostalgic a few previous that existed earlier than the digital revolution. However new applied sciences have been blamed for inflicting crises of distraction lengthy earlier than the digital age, so how ought to we reply to the present challenges?

An consideration disaster?

We surveyed a nationally consultant pattern of two,093 UK adults in September 2021, asking about their perceptions of their consideration spans, their beliefs in varied claims about our potential to focus, and the way they use expertise at the moment.

Half of these surveyed felt their consideration spans have been shorter than they was once, in contrast with 1 / 4 who didn’t. And three-quarters of members agreed we’re dwelling by a time the place there’s continuous competitors for our consideration from quite a lot of media channels and data shops.

The distraction brought on by cell phones specifically seemed to be an actual situation. Half of these surveyed admitted they couldn’t cease checking their telephones when they need to be specializing in different issues – and this wasn’t simply a problem for the younger. Regardless of the generational stereotypes of youngsters glued to their screens, a majority of middle-aged folks mentioned they wrestle with this too.

And though many recognised that they spent loads of time on their telephones, they nonetheless massively underestimated simply how a lot. The general public’s common guess was that they checked their telephones 25 instances a day however in accordance with earlier analysis, the truth is extra doubtless someplace between 49 and 80 instances a day.

There has lengthy been a fear in regards to the risk to consideration introduced by new cultural kinds, whether or not that’s social media or a budget paperback sensation novels of the nineteenth century. Even way back to historical Greece, Socrates lamented that the written phrase creates “forgetfulness in our souls”. There has all the time been an inclination to worry the consequences new media and applied sciences could have on our minds.

The fact is we merely don’t have the long-term research that inform us whether or not our collective consideration span has truly shrunk. What we do know from our research is that individuals overestimate a number of the issues. For instance, half of these surveyed wrongly believed the completely debunked declare that the common consideration span amongst adults at the moment is simply eight seconds, supposedly worse than that of a goldfish. There’s probably not any such factor as a mean consideration span. Our potential to focus varies massively relying on the person and the duty at hand.

Consideration snacking

It’s additionally essential to not overlook the various advantages that expertise brings to how we reside. A lot of the general public surveyed recognised these, so whereas half thought large tech and social media have been ruining younger folks’s consideration spans, roughly one other half felt that being simply distracted was extra to do with folks’s personalities than any destructive affect that expertise could or could not have.

That apart, is “dispersed” consideration all the time a nasty factor?

Two-thirds of the general public in our research believed switching focus between totally different media and gadgets harms our potential to finish easy duties – a perception confirmed by psychological research. Intriguingly, half of the general public additionally believed multi-tasking at work, switching continuously between e mail, cellphone calls, or different duties, can create a extra environment friendly and passable work expertise.

So what if we discover the advantages of distraction in addition to the destructive impacts? May we discover a extra balanced image through which distraction is just not all the time in and of itself a nasty factor, however an issue in sure contexts and productive in others? In different phrases, what if these lamenting a disaster in consideration aren’t unsuitable, however solely symbolize a part of the image?

For all of the challenges we expertise in having our consideration toggle between duties, in some situations, this may assist refresh the thoughts, maintain us alert, and stimulate mind connections and creativity. Unified consideration could also be a great, however it could not all the time be a practical good for the kind of animal that we people are.

We hear about the advantages for the physique of “train snacking” or circuit coaching, so maybe we have to ask how we’d harness the potential advantages for the thoughts of “consideration snacking”. The mind is, in any case, a bodily organ.

There isn’t any query that we have to determine the right way to reside higher with the “consideration economic system”, and that the monetisation of our consideration is difficult us in basic methods. Nevertheless, our digital devices aren’t going away and we have to discover ways to harness them (and the distractions they pose) for particular person and social good.

Our consideration has all the time been the one actual foreign money we’ve got, and for that motive, it has all the time been fought over; this isn’t a brand new drawback, however within the digital age it’s taking new kinds. We want a greater response to this case – one which understands the dangers however can also be bolder in asking questions in regards to the alternatives.

Marion Thain is the dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, at King’s Faculty London. This text first appeared on The Dialog.