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My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

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Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#91

Post by kqr »

graeme wrote: post #75
user_7832 wrote: post #64

At the risk of sounding repetitive, this can also be a classic case of ADHD. If you also resonate with the post, ask yourself - do you have issues planning and completing long projects? Time management and procrastination issues? Lacking motivation? (Dis)organization problems? (Bonus: frustrated with yourself/your progress!) If (like me) you say "damn that's a lot of things I have to a significant degree" then you sh…

How would you distinguish between ADHD vs modern distractability? Especially if someone showed no ADHD symptoms before smartphones Everyone has some distractability so curious about threshold

When it makes you effectively mentally handicapped (you literally need environmental adjustments in order to function) in at least two areas of life (work, relationships, household), it's clinical.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#92

Post by milosmns »

luxurytent wrote: post #13

Had a coworker who lived life the old way, distinct online and offline modes of operation. His phone was a classic flip phone. During the day, he'd be online working his software engineering job. Outside of that, he may stay on the computer some more, but if he stepped away from the office, there was no other device in his home to that'd allow him back online. We discussed it a few times, and my belief is that small…

Similar here. Mine was also very socially challenged, so to speak.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#93

Post by Mezzie »

wcchandler wrote: post #63
iratewizard wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone struggling, turning the screen to black and white helps. Less dopamine per hit makes it easier to break those habits.

I never thought to do this and already enabled it per your comment. Let’s see how it goes the rest of the weekend.

I genuinely prefer greyscale displays. If I weren't visually impaired and/or so much UX didn't rely on color, I'd turn it off permanently except for art creation.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#94

Post by npteljes »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #86
xerox13ster wrote: post #4

I did a digital detox in July of 2020, I had become overwhelmed with Discord and Reddit moderation and trying to Keep Up. I burned out hard. I turned off all electronics for a month and uninstalled the apps and restricted my phone use to calls and responding to 3 close friend's texts at a set time each day--I didn't keep it on me at all. No video games, no TV, no watch or music streaming. I had my library of local mu…

How much did the benefits continue past the end of your detox?

I've heard that reading from a novel daily, with a large continuous story, increases empathy. This effect is said to last for 5 days after the last reading session. Unfortunately I can't find the source, but I think that this is a helpful data point. With the moral of the story being that it's something to continuously keep up, to have the benefit.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#95

Post by rubicon33 »

xerox13ster wrote: post #4

I did a digital detox in July of 2020, I had become overwhelmed with Discord and Reddit moderation and trying to Keep Up. I burned out hard. I turned off all electronics for a month and uninstalled the apps and restricted my phone use to calls and responding to 3 close friend's texts at a set time each day--I didn't keep it on me at all. No video games, no TV, no watch or music streaming. I had my library of local mu…

I know of someone who has undergone a similar detox. From what I've heard it's been somewhat life changing (in a positive way). I don't necessarily think it's lead to more _material_ success, but they seem happier and more positive generally.

I'm trying to do a light version of this. I'm not sure I can ever completely give up the internet and video games. They're a big source of enjoyment for me. How much of that enjoyment is rotting away at my ability to focus and do great work for long periods of time? I'm not sure... but I'm also not sure I'd want to give up the things that I really enjoy, just to work more?

I'm trying to just find a balance in life. I don't necessarily need to be producing code 24/7. I just want to enjoy myself the times when I am working, and feel positive at the end of the day that I wasn't ultra distracted and fragmented.

Regarding reading ...

I have been reading a lot more lately, but I'm not sure I could ever reach 350 pages a day. I just get bored after a while. I'm sure that's directly related to a life of internet + gaming, but, I have a super hard time believing I will EVER find books as interesting or engaging as the internet and video games. That cat is out of the bag. So I can give about an hour or two a day to a book, but then I'm pretty much disinterested and find myself "reading" but not actually paying attention.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#97

Post by gnicholas »

walrus01 wrote: post #74

The best thing you can do is FULLY TURN OFF notifications from any social media app (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc). Anything that would result in a requirement to swipe down from the top of the screen on android and look at a notification/popup and either slide it away to dismiss it or click on it. It's easy to do in android or ios. You should only see content when you specifically choose to open the app. This i…

Or uninstall the apps and use a browser instead.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#98

Post by TechBro8615 »

thenerdhead wrote: post #2

I had a similar awakening moment about 5 years ago. Felt like I wasted my 20s on consuming content and only playing video games outside of work. I had a similar journey. I’m even writing a book on it. I have found that the one thing that has helped bring enlightenment to this problem is reading books and thinking each day on how to apply them or just simply observing those around me instead of being glued on a device…

> outside of work

Why did you feel this pressure to meet some self-defined obligation outside of work? Were you missing something in the work itself that you felt you had to recover in the time outside of it?

In my experience, if I feel the value of my work output itself is meaningful, then I don’t need to worry about what I’m doing outside of it. If you start a business or work for yourself, then your career goals “at work” and “outside of work” are equivalent, thus freeing that time “outside of work” for you to make progress toward non-career goals (or to simply relax and recover).

I’ve always found discussion of side-project optimization to be silly, because it’s missing the forest for the trees. The optimization is to take the risk and work on it full time.

If you want to maximize the meaningful activities you do in your life, then it makes sense to start with the category of activity you spend the highest percentage of time performing.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#99

Post by darkerside »

I will say that perhaps the reason the author couldn't get into those authors is not that they lost the ability to read longer material, but that they have somehow matured or evolved to a point where a certain type of book that used to be entertaining just isn't anymore. And that's ok. At some point, you've tapped a book, TV series, or other similar content for all you're going to get. It starts to get formulaic, and it's fine to move on.

Re: My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span

#100

Post by dudul »

codemonkey-zeta wrote: post #59

> When I pulled up at a stoplight waiting for the light to change, I would instinctively reached for my phone (mounted on my dash) to check my email (personal + work), check ESPN, look up something on Amazon, etc. While pumping gas in the car, I’d whip out my phone while waiting. Stuck in line somewhere? Time for my phone. Waiting in an elevator? The phone. Riding the train? The phone. Going to the bathroom? Make sur…

I remember the elevator thing hitting me pretty hard back around 2010/2011 when I had a job on the 9th floor of an office building. I realized that almost every single person stepping into the elevator would immediately pull out their phone and start playing with it. Even for a 3 floor ride that would take literally 5 seconds. They genuinely couldn't bare to not be entertained for 5 seconds.

I assume things are even worse nowadays.

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