Here’s an article about technology and focus:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/well/mind/concentration-focus-distraction.html
First, understand what’s distracting you.
Notifications are one major source of distraction — those pings and dings pull you out of your work and prompt you to check your texts, email or Slack. Because our brains are evolutionarily designed to pay attention to novelty, these alerts are almost impossible to ignore. And if you try to, you’ll likely find your anxiety mounting.
In one diabolical study, psychologists brought heavy and moderate smartphone users into the lab under the auspices of a different experiment. They hooked the participants up to skin conductance monitors, which measure levels of arousal, and took away their phones, telling them that they interfered with the research equipment. Then the researchers texted the participants multiple times; the phones were close enough to hear but too far away to check.
When their phones buzzed, the participants’ arousal levels spiked. “They felt like they needed to answer that text or at least see who it was from, and they couldn’t,” said Larry Rosen, a professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills and a co-author on the study. “And that gave them anxiety.”
Turning off notifications is a good way to reduce distractions — indeed, it’s a classic tip — but it won’t completely solve the problem. In her research on office workers, Dr. Mark found that external distractions accounted for only half of the interruptions in focus. The other half were prompted by an internal motivation to switch tasks. Most interesting, Dr. Mark observed that when the number of external interruptions waned, the number of self-interruptions rose.
“We get into this pattern of having short attention spans,” she said. “And if we’re not being interrupted by something external to us, then we switch gears and begin to interrupt ourselves.”
Dr. Rosen hypothesizes that these urges to self-distract are caused by stress. Research shows that heavier smartphone use is correlated with higher levels of cortisol and other markers of stress. Rising anxiety could become an internal signal to look at your texts or Twitter, even without a chime or vibration. When there are no notifications, Dr. Rosen said, people “get a strong internal sign from their anxiety system that says, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have to check in!’ And so they do.”
Reading on screen vs. paper:
Traditionally, our brains tended to read print materials more slowly, in part because we were more likely to go back and double-check what we just read. That extra time lent itself to sophisticated mental processes like critical analysis, inference, deduction and empathy.
Unfortunately, simply printing out an article or opting for a paperback book instead of your Kindle won’t guarantee that you suddenly become a more engaged reader. Our brains adapt to read in the style of the medium we use most often, and chances are you spend a lot more time reading on a screen than you do on paper. As a result, Dr. Wolf said, you likely now read in print the way you read on a screen.
“Many people have lost the ability to really immerse themselves,” she said. “We have developed a cognitive impatience about our reading.”
Related:
- Digital Minimalism: "Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes"
- Do Smartphones Dull Mental Performance?
- "Our minds can be hijacked" - "possibly lowering IQ"
- Is smartphone photography bad for memory?
- Reading on a smartphone affects comprehension
- "Taking a Break from Social Media Makes you Happier and Less Anxious"
- "Reach for your cell phone at your own risk"
- "How to overcome Phone Addiction"
