Stay Focused In A Digital Age
Learning to stay focused with the maximum attention on a certain task is very hard to attain especially with the flood of stimulants coming from social media and the craving one demands for these outlets. As a result, we started talking about multitasking and some wrongly think that this is an advantage for learners but scientific studies and researches have clearly proved that multi-taskers pay a huge mental price. According to a study done by researchers at Stanford University, it is impossible to process more than one string of information at a time. The brain just can’t do it. People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.
“In the 21st Century we won’t experience 100 years of progress, but 20,000 years worth of progress.” -Raymond Kurzweil, Law of Accelerating Returns
“All the information ever created in human history up to 2003 is created double every day.” -Eric Schmidt, while CEO of Google
•The average 13 to 17 year old sends/receives around 4,000 texts a month. That’s about one every six minutes.
•Over 50% report checking email while driving
•Just over 60% will check their email while on vacation
•One study showed that some office workers check their emails up to 40 times in one hour
•Over two thirds check their phones for alerts, calls or messages, even without being prompted to
•About three fourths admit to using their phone in the bathroom
•Almost 70% can’t go to be without looking at their inbox
•43% confess to checking email sometime throughout the night
•Just over one third admit to checking their phone before getting out of bed
Howard Rheingold, a leading tech psychologist has provided some great tips for you to stay focused on your tasks and regain back your attention.
1. Our hormones reward us for information seeking and social contact; they also trigger fight-or-flight physiological responses, although the stimuli that trigger the alarms are not actually threatening. Letting our attention and reactions to social media go uncontrolled can be harmful to our health.
2. Breathe, and ask yourself where your attention is directed. These two simple acts, taken together, are your first steps, and powerful levers for bringing your social media attention under control.
3. Mindfulness is about becoming aware of how you are developing your attention, online or off
4. Attention to intention is how the mind changes the brain. When you repeat mental patterns, you stimulate networks of brain cells and organs to coordinate in ways that strengthen those circuits ( neurons that fire together wire together ), and make conscious sequences of actions into automatic ensembles-like learning to read- except that now you are learning to manage attention in the face of social media opportunities for distraction. To say that social media affords distraction is not to say that technology has to be in control of your awareness, you can take control back, through repeated conscious efforts.
5. Like meditation, mindful use of social media begins with noticing when your attention has wandered, and then gently bringing it back to focus on your highest priorities, like training a puppy.
6. To establish new attention habits start small, find a place in your routine for a new behavior, and repeat until paying attention has become habitual.
The key point to remember about staying focused is buying into a system that works for you. Start with small steps, and then try and build on those successes.
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