Finding Focus
I’ll never forget the last few weeks of my third year in college where I spent 15-hour days typing articles, checking emails, texting, writing papers, video editing, photo editing, and creating social media content for work and school.
One night around 11:30 p.m., I sat at my desk reflecting on my 12-hour screen time, exhausted. With my phone and laptop notifications turned off, I look in the mirror and saw my eyes were heavy as I felt a true sense of “burnout.” As I kept staring at my unrecognizable eyes, I decided to sketch, a craft of mine I haven’t practiced in years.
As I work with the pencil and paper, I get into an unexplainable trance where every ounce of creativity left inside me takes over. I’m no longer thinking about my assignments due next week or worrying about my lack of sleep. Instead, I’m allowing a picture to form as I trust the process. I decided to sketch my own eye, as I can’t recognize my own reflection in the mirror. After sketching for what I thought to be 20 minutes, turned out to be an hour and a half.
In Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again,” this trance is described as a type of science known as the “flow state.” It’s when someone is so focused on the process of something, any external distraction is blocked out.
I find my “flow states” diminish over time as I continue to use technology more and more, especially as a college student studying journalism and communications. According to research conducted by Vision District, the average U.S. adult will spend an equivalent of 44 years of their life staring at screens, with 382,652 hours and 48 minutes of screen time over the average lifetime of 60.7 years. Another study showed during lockdown, people spent an average of 19 hours per day on their screens. Before the pandemic, Americans would spend an average of 11 hours per day on their screens.
According to Hari, about 35% of workers are glued to their phones out of fear of missing a message from their boss. To help mitigate this anxiety, France created a legal “right to disconnect” where employers cannot contact employees outside work hours. This helps create a more balanced work-life.
After reading the introduction and the first three chapters of “Stolen Focus” as well as my research findings, the key factor in managing technology, mental health, physical health and productivity is focusing on balance. In an article written by Hari, the former Google engineer James Williams says completely getting rid of technology is not the answer to help people focus and reduce anxiety but instead, “it’s really the environmental changes that really make the difference.”
Some ways you can help find a tech-life balance include not using multiple screens at the same time, not watching TV or looking at a screen later than two hours before bedtime, turning off or minimizing your notifications and taking a break. The brain cannot multitask, but instead, focus on one action or thought at a time (Hari 2022). When I set my phone to “do not disturb” or keep my work notifications on when working or my personal notifications on when outside of work, I find myself to be much more organized and regain control of my thoughts and stress.
Minimizing the use of technology and finding a balance can help one find better focus and still be productive in a tech-savvy world!
References
Hari, J. (2022). Cause Two: The Crippling of Our Flow States. In Stolen focus: Why you can't pay attention--and how to think deeply again (First Edition ed., pp. 47-76). Crown.
Loubier, A. (2020, October 06). How to balance tech and everything else in life. Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrealoubier/2020/10/06/how-to-balance-tech-and-everything-else-in-life/?sh=27b08e9d6183
Reid Health. Blog: How much screen time is too much for adults? (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://www.reidhealth.org/blog/screen-time-for-adults
Staff, P. (2020, June 03). Average U.S. adult will spend equivalent of 44 years of their life staring at screens: Poll. Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://people.com/human-interest/average-us-adult-screens-study/
Your attention didn't collapse. it was stolen. (2022, January 02). Retrieved September 4, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/attention-span-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media
Featured Photo by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay