Explore how digital distraction is eroding focus, productivity, and mental health, and learn how mindfulness and balance can restore attention
Suresh Chandra Sarangi
The 21st century is swept by the digital wave, overwhelmingly shaping lives, politics, the economy, and human existence in numerous ways. The digital revolution, however, put us under siege. At a time, when the digital revolution helps us celebrate productivity, innovation, including connection and connectivity, but at a valuable cost.
All the benefits of the digital age, however, are available at an invisible cost. But in the social aspect, the digital revolution has broken our focus. So much so that this has penetrated our lives like an addiction, with loss of attention, which has necessitated finding a balance; every IT professional is toggling between tasks, endlessly going through inboxes, completely drained and exhausted. It is said that the digital attraction is the culprit, a systemic problem, that is growing like a wildfire.
Everything in today’s life is being plagued by digital distraction, affecting mental health, our lives, and our leisure, making human beings couch potatoes. Our attention today is fractured, our concentration is divided, ultimately affecting our mental neural architecture, reshaping the brain. It is understood that technology has massive power for transformation.
Technology is a powerful wave, hugely transformative and enriching. It has changed life. One simple smartphone connects, takes your selfie, makes an order to Zomato or Swiggy, allows one person to do banking from home, participate in the stock market, transfer data, takes a photograph, entertains by bringing cricket, drama, movies, culture, stories of human life, and their struggle for existence. It connects, enables us to be clear, remain connected, and provides a sense of clarity, balance, and focus.
But while the digital age is transformative and ushered in a revolution, the distraction is embedded in the success of the digital age. In the digital age, our focus is gradually drawn into multiple directions, making life anxious and fatigued. Frankly speaking, the digital world is ruthless, where everything on the mobile catches our focus faster, speedier, and more granular. Mindless is constantly wandering at an unimaginable speed, albeit to concentrate. As per research, attention has plummeted to an all-time low. Research further says that in the early 2000s, when focus was for hours, now in 2012, it has dropped to 75 seconds, and in recent years, it is abysmally low at 47 seconds, with further deterioration. This presents a clear picture, sustained attention is e coming as a scarce commodity, and the onslaught of digital distraction is huge.
What to do? Can we put a curtain on our smartphones, lock all social media, and enjoy the bliss of idyllic felicity? In the digital world, multitasking is a myth that reduces productivity, and digital distraction is eroding memory, intelligence, earnings, and creativity. Gradually, we are drawn into the vortex of fractured attention, and the hidden cost would be unfathomable. Some have felt shattered, requiring resilience and rehabilitation. There is certainly a growing attention crisis in the attention economy. Taking away your attention for a minute may cost substantially. But this attention disorder is a high cost to productivity. Learning in an age of social media is lost, and concentration becomes a casualty. Now it is a stolen focus, resultant stress, and disturbed mental well-being.
Now, the question comes: what needs to be done in an age of shifting values and disturbing social media? Do we need monotasking, close all notifications, and become the boss of all devices held by an individual, by creating a focus-friendly environment? That is why mindfulness and meditation come into the picture to have the stability of a creative mind. We need to practice them. Doctors take a break, and shatter your boredom. One has to garner focus-related norms.
As we have to depend on machines, our efforts have to shift to personal communication, maintaining social relations through meaningful communication. Embrace mobility, work in the physical workplace, rather than work from home, that is boredom, devoid of agility and creativity. Work leads have to be reduced, train the people to enjoy life while working, and foster a culture of sensitivity, trust, and concentrate on output over activity.
Technology use must be a balance; social media has to be occasional, and setting clear boundaries and schedules for screen time is the immediate need of the hour. Time for family and time out of the tech zone may help promote healthy, sound sleep of 7 to 8 hours. So instead of degenerating into mental equilibrium, a proper balance, while navigating through work life, social life, and personal life, is the key to personal bliss.
The focus is so little and the distraction is too much, for which carving out time for yoga and pranayama will make life soothing, virile, and dynamic. Time for drama, art, theatre, movies, and cultural performances will increase the focus. concentration and mental stability. tours, travels, and nature hunting will bring new agility, like a flamboyant river. Unless we free ourselves from a severe attention disorder, the entire mankind is doomed.
We are inundated by the explosion of the information revolution. In today’s fast-paced digital world, brain fog and distraction are common, and the overuse has led to serious impairment of the brain. We need to detoxify our brains. The whole issue is that it has deeply distracted youth and students’ education, leading to bad performance, anxiety, and depression.
As the mind is hacked, experts are suggesting reducing screen time, engaging in physical activities, and nurturing one’s creative pursuits. It has come to notice that the attention loss is such a huge problem that digital detox does not work. The Internet plays spoilsports. Abstaining from social media is a productive decision.
Ultimately, there is too much digital fatigue; the average working week involves 21.5 hours in a week in meetings through Zoom or Google, and excessive creep time is leading to tiredness, burnout, and decreased productivity. This nascent sickness is virulent and must be nipped in the bud.
(The writer is a former General Manager of Bank of India. Views expressed are personal.)