Stretching the Attention Span
I’ve struggled to get my attention span under control this year. It’s improved a lot, mostly because I’ve changed my eating habits and I’ve been feeding my brain lots of oils. (Fish oil and Omegas.) Oils are magic brain food, seriously. Some studies say they’re more effective than Ritalin and the like.
I still yearn for my 5K writing days of old, and I’m not there yet.
Via a blog at Writer Unboxed, “The Internet, Your Brain, Your Writerly Self,” I discovered an article from a recent NPR show, “This Is Your Brain Online.” In it, Nicholas Carr explains how the internet is worsening our attention spans:
"Neuroscientists and psychologists have discovered that, even as adults, our brains are very plastic," Carr explains. "They’re very malleable, they adapt at the cellular level to whatever we happen to be doing. And so the more time we spend surfing, and skimming, and scanning … the more adept we become at that mode of thinking."
Humankind’s natural state is one of distractedness. In the wild, we needed to be constantly shifting our attention in a state of scanning alertness for the many dangers and threats to our daily survival.
Prolonged, solitary thought is not the natural human state, but rather “an aberration in the great sweep of intellectual history that really just emerged with [the] technology of the printed page.”
This was a revelation to me. Granted, I am a little more scatterbrained than normal people, but still. If I view a short attention span as a normal state instead of a deficiency, I can view developing a longer attention span as a practice. If our brains are so adaptable, why can’t I train it to single-task instead of multi-task?
So I’m trying.
I’ve been working on reading for hours. That sounds odd, but in the past few years, it seems I can’t go for a half hour of reading without jumping online. I remember when I used to curl up with a book for hours. Every night.
I’ve found that if I start my writing day by reading for an hour instead of hopping around online, my brain more easily focuses on writing.
I’m trying to do everything in long, single-minded stretches, one thing at a time. Even Facebook. I feel like it’s helping. Yesterday I had my first 4K day in months.
I’ve started meditating, but I’m still at thirty seconds. My brain sorta goes berserk. But hey, even if I add only ten seconds a day, I’ll be up to an hour in a year.
I’m writing first, no matter what. If I don’t produce content, I’ll starve. I’ve been dropping the ball on the little tasks in a writing life, which I regret, but I’m working hard not to let the little emergencies take precedence over writing new words.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Facebook. I love seeing how my friends are doing, I love touching base with them, and I love feeling like there’s a “water cooler” at work. Studies show that distracting yourself for a little bit improves creativity, too.
I just want to keep my distractions as distractions. There are days where writing feels like the distraction from the internet, rather than the other way around.
What was your mind like before Facebook and Twitter and the like? Do you work on stretching and strengthening your attention span? How?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
As I don’t do Facebook or Twitter et al, but only blog in the late evenings now I find my reading, writing and meditating are going better than ever. I used to do alot of blog hopping but that’s come to a slowdown as I have other more important things to do. It’s a matter of setting priorities. Keeping to a schedule helps, and I try to keep to a writing quota every day. That way if I miss a day of writing I can always add more to the other days I do write to keep up with my deadlines.
I take fish oil supplements too, and it does help with cognitive function.
As for meditation or any other situation that requires being focused for long periods of time I am able to do that without getting distracted. If I’m being lazy, then of course I’ll easily be distracted by something else. But, as you said, writing needs to come first and by making that choice then everything else will fit into its slot.
Barbara, I’ve found blogging to be more time-consuming than Facebook, but it does provoke more thought.
I admire your ability to meditate!
The internet can be addicting!
I have no problem reading for hours; work is where I am constantly jumping around, back and forth, constant interruption so my attention span is pretty well shot by the time I get home. I make sure my evenings are full of long stretches because it helps me get my focus back.
BTW, we’ve been roasting up here in OH this month–it’s hit 90 or more so many days!! I know, it’s probably 120 where you are, right?
That makes sense, Elizabeth. A balance is good!
Actually, it’s pretty cool here. By cool, I mean it’s mid-90s, but there’s humidity now. I’m done with missing rain, now.
Thanks for this. I’ve felt lately in particular like the distractions are taking over my life, like I’m unable to sit on a project for longer than 10 minutes without hitting FB or some other site or checking email. I’ve been trying to push back jumping on an email the second it arrives and I think I need to do FB something like twice a day instead of whenever it occurs to me. There’s a slow seepage, too, I think. There may be other reasons for my distractiveness (is that a word?), but the Internet is clearly an enabler. So I think you’re on to something here. What’s strange, in a way, is this year has been probably more productive and profitable than any other years, but I sort of feel like I’m getting less done. Weird.
Mark, that’s not so weird. I think each field has its own mindset need. Freelancing (as far as I know) seems to call for doing lots of things: emails, scurrying up new work, touching base with different projects, not to mention writing, and then you’re writing fiction, too. A multi-tasking brain seems like it would help that, somewhat. Maybe?
I do notice that now that I’m down to doing one thing in my work day. It’s been hard to teach my brain to do that. But I’m learning!
Me too. I’m going to print this blog post and tape it over my computer so that first thing in the morning I read then write instead of play those zynga games and check up on my friends.
LOL, Laura! I’ve pushed that to second. I read for an hour, pop on Facebook, then write.
Fascinating and frightening. There’s no doubt my concentration — which used to be a strength for me — has become increasingly crap. But I attributed it to aging and stress, not the Internet. But it is true, I flit around the Internet picking up vast amounts of information, but in tiny bits.
I’ve mentioned how I had gotten away from reading and have actually managed to read more again. I love reading but, like you, I found myself unable to read except in short stretches whereas I used to read a book for hours cover to cover. I’ve had to work my way gradually up from all short novels to the occassional longer one.
So maybe I’m not really deteriorating but just misusing my brain. That’s really, really interesting.
Eric, my concentration was far better in music than in writing. Zoning out is almost a necessity for the creative process, but then so is long periods of focus. It’s sorta hard to do both!
It’s taken awhile for me to improve my reading, too. I think I’m there!
It’s so hard to keep away from the internet. It is totally addicting. I really only do my blog and e mail, because I know myself, and if I get used to Facebook, it’s over. I don’t even see how people do it, because just keeping up with Blog World takes a significant amount of time.
If I put myself in a room with no computer, and no family, my concentration is fine. Can you sort of hide your computer – put it physically out of reach – for certain periods when you want to get work or reading done? Then you could grab it for a half hour treat or something.
Isn’t it, Robin?! I’ve made Facebook my first social priority. Everything else, like blogging, gets pushed down. I still read a lot of blogs, but I don’t comment as much.
I don’t have trouble putting it down to read, but I can’t put it away while writing, or I wouldn’t write!
LOL! I forgot you write on the computer! Oh, man!
I have to say, the 9 years I lived w/o TV were among the best in my life. After a couple of weeks (breaking the addiction,) your brain REALLY starts working again. Not to mention that you get OUT, DO things, LEARN things.
Lana, I don’t have a TV, either. I don’t miss it in the slightest. I spent a large part of my twenties with having one in my closet, which I’d take out once or twice a year. Once I got sick, I started watching. After I got better, I got rid of cable and the like. Now that I’m on the road, I didn’t buy a TV. I do watch a few shows on the Internet, but… let’s see… I’ve watched two hours in the last three weeks.
I shudder to think of watching more!
I never thought I would consider my eye-explosion a blessing. With the damage my cornea suffered from the multiple surgeries to re-attache my retina (as unsuccessful as they were), I physically cannot stare at the screen. I tire easily. When I used to belong to several RWA chapter loops it was literally impossible for me to read all those posts.
Thus, I don’t blog hop much, don’t read all the comments, and Facebook…nah, not much.
Ugh! That’s awful, Kate! I don’t know how I used to keep up with my loops. I’m not on any, anymore. I let a lot of things drop. Even when on Facebook. I don’t mean to, but… you know. Priorities!
This sure explains a lot. Like why I’m now writing short stories instead of my usual 400 pages. I just don’t have the drive to do anything longer….
Am I a victim of the internet?
Oh how fun, Aimless! I’ve gotten out of short story practice. I need to get back in!
“I’m trying to do everything in long, single-minded stretches, one thing at a time. Even Facebook. I feel like it’s helping. Yesterday I had my first 4K day in months.”
That’s great. I’ll try it, too, but I’m not promising anything…
Oh, gosh. I know exactly what you mean. I used to be able to read for hours and hours at a time. Now it’s 5 or 10 pages at a pop, then I have to do something else.
My writing habits have become similar. I used to sit for hours and write out a few thousands words. But the last few years I seem to write in 250 word snippets, almost as if I’m writing for Twitter or Facebook. Fortunately I can force myself to sit down for 5 or 6 of these little writing spurts each day, so I at least feel somewhat productive.
There is no question I wrote more words in a day pre-internet and blogging, etc.
But now I write more for pay so it feels different. It’s a lot tougher.