Why are our attention spans cooked?

January 22nd, 2025

• The collapse
• What's killing your attention?
• So... what's happening in your brain?
• The memory problem
• How you can fix it
• The advantage
• Unlocking your freedom

Note: I think this to be the arguably most useful and practical article on this site because it impacts you literally 24/7!

Your brain is being rewired. Not slowly, over generations. Right now. Today. Every time you check your phone, scroll through a feed, or skip to the next video before the current one finishes. You're training yourself to be distracted. And the scariest part? You don't even notice it happening.

Think about the last time you read a book for two hours straight. No phone checks. No tab switching. Just you and the book. Can you even remember? Most people can't. Not because they don't want to, but because they literally can't anymore. Their brain won't let them. The prefrontal cortex (the part responsible for sustained attention and impulse control) has been weakened through years of constant task-switching and dopamine-seeking behaviour. Your brain now craves novelty and stimulation every few seconds. Sitting still with a book feels physically uncomfortable, almost painful. The urge to check your phone, switch tabs, or do something else becomes overwhelming.

The collapse...

Attention spans have measurably declined in the digital age. The explosion of TikTok (launched in 2016), Instagram stories and reels, YouTube shorts, infinite scrolling on every platform, and algorithmic feeds that serve you exactly what keeps you hooked has fundamentally changed how we process information. Screen time has skyrocketed. The average person now spends 4-6 hours per day on their phone. That's 4-6 hours of training your brain to switch, switch, switch.

But raw numbers don't capture the real shift. It's not just that we focus for less time. It's that we've lost the ability to sustain deep focus entirely. We've become addicted to switching. And this has completely changed how we live. We can't finish a full movie without checking our phone. We skim articles instead of reading them. We skip through podcasts at 2x speed. We watch 15-second videos but can't sit through a 10-minute one. We start books and never finish them. We have conversations but aren't really listening. We're always half-present, half-elsewhere. Our work suffers because we can't do deep, focused work. Our relationships suffer because we're never fully there. We're exhausted because our brains are constantly context-switching, but we feel like we haven't accomplished anything meaningful.

Era	Primary media	Attention pattern
1950s-1970s	Books, Radio, Television (3 channels)	Deep, sustained focus. People read novels for hours. Watched full TV programs without interruption.
1980s-1990s	Cable TV (100+ channels), Video games, Early internet	Channel surfing begins. Attention starts fragmenting. But still capable of deep focus (reading, gaming sessions lasting hours).
2000s	Broadband internet, Social media (Facebook, YouTube), Smartphones (late 2000s)	Rapid switching becomes normal. Tabs, multitasking, notifications. Attention span begins measurable decline.
2010s to Present	Infinite scroll (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter), Algorithm-driven feeds, Constant notifications	Attention completely shattered. Average person checks phone 96 times per day (once every 10 minutes). Can't sit through a 10-minute video without skipping. Reading a full article is rare.

The shift isn't just technological. It's neurological. Your grandfather could sit and read a newspaper for 30 minutes because his brain was wired for sustained attention. He grew up in an environment with limited stimuli. No notifications. No infinite content. No dopamine hits every few seconds. His brain's reward system developed in a context where deep focus was the norm, not the exception. Reading a newspaper for 30 minutes was pleasurable because his dopamine pathways weren't constantly being hijacked by designed distractions. His brain learned that patience and sustained attention led to meaningful rewards: understanding a story, solving a crossword, finishing an article. That wiring stayed with him for life.

Your brain is wired for novelty-seeking. You've spent thousands of hours training it to be this way. Every time you get a notification and check it, you get a small dopamine hit. Every time you see something new and interesting while scrolling, dopamine. Every like, every comment, every unexpected video, dopamine. Your brain has learned: new thing equals reward. So now it constantly seeks the next thing. It's been conditioned, like Pavlov's dog, except instead of salivating at a bell, you crave the next scroll, the next notification, the next tab. The urge isn't rational. It's automatic. Your brain is just following the pattern it's been taught.

This conditioning happens through a process called operant conditioning. Your brain releases dopamine not just when you get a reward (a funny video, an interesting post), but in anticipation of the reward. That's why you feel a little rush when you unlock your phone, before you even see anything. Your brain has learned that checking usually leads to something new and stimulating. And because the rewards are variable (sometimes boring, sometimes amazing), it's even more addictive. Slot machines work the same way. You keep pulling the lever because you never know when you'll hit. You keep scrolling because you never know when you'll find something good. With each repetition, the neural pathways strengthen. The behaviour becomes automatic. You check your phone without even thinking. You're not weak-willed. You're biologically different.

Here's what this looks like in everyday life:

Behaviour	Why it's happening and what it shows
Reading a long text message and stopping halfway through to check something else, then forgetting to reply	The prefrontal cortex (responsible for working memory and sustained attention) has been weakened by constant task-switching. Your brain now craves novelty every few seconds, so the urge to check something else overrides your intention to finish reading. This shows you can't even sustain attention through a single message.
Opening your phone to do something specific, getting distracted by a notification, and completely forgetting what you opened it for	Constant interruptions have trained your brain to operate in reactive mode rather than intentional mode. When a notification appears, your bottom-up attention system automatically takes over, hijacking your original intention. This shows your working memory is compromised and you've lost control over your own actions.
Watching a movie with subtitles on and still checking your phone every few minutes	Your dopamine baseline has been artificially raised by constant stimulation. One screen delivering content at a fixed pace can no longer satisfy your brain's craving for novelty and variable rewards. This shows even when actively engaged with content, your brain seeks additional stimulation because one source isn't enough.
Starting multiple tabs or apps, switching between them constantly, and finishing none of them	The neural pathways for task-switching have become so strong that your brain automatically seeks the next thing before completing the current one. The anticipation of what's in the next tab gives you a dopamine hit, making it impossible to resist. This shows task-switching has become an automatic compulsion and your brain actively resists staying with one thing long enough to complete it.
Skipping through videos at 1.5x or 2x speed because normal pace feels too slow	Thousands of hours of rapid-fire content (TikToks, Reels, YouTube Shorts) have trained your brain to expect information at an accelerated pace. Normal speed now triggers impatience and restlessness because your brain interprets it as "not enough stimulation." This shows your baseline for information delivery has been permanently altered and anything slower feels unbearable.
Having a conversation but thinking about something else or planning what to say next instead of listening	Sustained attention on a single audio stream (someone speaking) requires top-down attention control, which has atrophied from lack of use. Your brain's default mode network constantly generates distracting thoughts, and without strong prefrontal cortex control, you can't suppress them. This shows your mind wanders uncontrollably even during real-time human interaction because sustained attention on another person's words has become difficult.
Buying books, starting them, and never finishing because something new always seems more interesting	Your brain has been conditioned to associate "new" with reward through operant conditioning. Every time you discover something new (a new book, video, article), you get a dopamine hit. But sustaining attention on one thing doesn't provide that novelty hit, so your brain loses interest. This shows novelty-seeking overrides commitment to deep engagement because new always feels better than unfinished.
Scrolling social media "just for a minute" and realising 45 minutes have passed	Infinite scroll combined with variable reward schedules (sometimes boring content, sometimes amazing content) creates a compulsive loop identical to slot machine gambling. Your brain loses sense of time because it's in a hyperfocused, dopamine-seeking state. This shows infinite scroll and variable rewards hijack your sense of time and intention, putting you into a compulsive loop where you can't stop.
Feeling anxious or restless when you can't check your phone for 10 minutes	Your brain has developed a physical dependence on regular dopamine hits from notifications and new content. When deprived, your amygdala (stress centre) activates, creating anxiety and restlessness similar to withdrawal from any addictive substance. This shows you have physical dependence on stimulation because your brain has been conditioned to need regular dopamine hits to feel normal.
Refreshing the same apps repeatedly even though you just checked them 2 minutes ago	This is pure operant conditioning. Your brain has learned that refreshing sometimes produces a reward (new content, notification), so it keeps trying even when logic says nothing will be there. The anticipatory dopamine (hoping for something new) drives the compulsive behaviour. This shows the behaviour is compulsive, driven by anticipation of novelty rather than actual need for information.

What's killing your attention?

1. Infinite scrolling

Before infinite scrolling, you reached the end of something. You finished reading the newspaper. You finished watching a TV show. There was a natural stopping point. Your brain got closure. Now? There's no end. TikTok has infinite videos. Twitter has infinite tweets. Instagram has infinite posts. You never finish. Your brain never gets the signal to stop. So you keep scrolling. One more video. One more post. Just one more.

The algorithm knows this. It's designed to keep you hooked. Designed by whom? Product designers, user experience (UX) specialists, and "growth hackers" whose entire job is maximising engagement. Many of these professionals earn $150,000 to $400,000+ per year at companies like Meta, TikTok, and Google. Their performance is measured by metrics like "daily active users," "time spent on platform," and "engagement rate." They run thousands of A/B tests to find the perfect shade of red for a notification badge, the optimal delay before showing the next video, the exact algorithm tweak that keeps you scrolling 5% longer. They study your behaviour down to the millisecond: when you pause, what you skip, what makes you click. Then they feed that data into machine learning models that predict what will keep you hooked. Every video is slightly different from the last. Every post triggers a tiny hit of curiosity. "What's next?" Your brain is constantly in anticipation mode. Never satisfied. Always seeking.

2. Notifications

Every notification is an interruption. Every interruption fractures your attention. If you get a notification every 10 minutes (and most people do), you never reach deep focus. Ever. You're constantly in a shallow, reactive state.

But here's the thing: you're not just interrupted when the notification comes. You're interrupted by the anticipation of the notification. Your brain is constantly on alert. "Is someone texting me? Did I get a like? Is there an email?" Even when your phone is silent, your brain is listening.

3. Multitasking

You're not multitasking. You're task-switching. Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you "multitask," you're rapidly switching between tasks. And every switch has a cost. A cognitive tax. Your brain has to reorient. "Where was I? What was I doing?" This happens so fast you don't notice. But it drains you. By the end of the day, you're exhausted, even though you didn't actually do much.

People who multitask heavily (watching TV while scrolling, listening to music while reading) perform worse on cognitive tasks. They're not just distracted in the moment. They're training their brain to be distracted. They're losing the ability to focus deeply.

4. Variable rewards

Slot machines are addictive because you never know when you'll win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you win big. The unpredictability keeps you pulling the lever. Social media works the same way. Sometimes you post and get 5 likes. Sometimes you get 500. Sometimes you scroll and see boring content. Sometimes you see something hilarious. The variability keeps you hooked. If every post got exactly 10 likes, you'd get bored. But because you never know, you keep checking.

Your brain releases dopamine not when you get the reward, but in anticipation of the reward. That's why you feel a little rush when you open Instagram, before you even see anything. Your brain is hoping for something good. And that hope is addictive.

5. The attention economy we live in

Every tech company is fighting for your attention. Because attention is money. The longer you stay on their platform, the more ads they can show you. So they hire teams of psychologists, neuroscientists, and engineers to design apps that are as addictive as possible. Autoplay. Infinite scroll. Push notifications. Red badges. All designed to keep you hooked.

You're not using social media. Social media is using you. You're the product. Your attention is being harvested and sold to advertisers. How do they make money? Every time you scroll, every second you spend on the platform, they collect data about you: what you like, what you click, what you linger on, what you skip. This data builds a detailed profile of your interests, demographics, and behaviour. Advertisers pay billions to access this profile. Facebook's average revenue per user in North America is about $60 per quarter. TikTok makes roughly $4-5 billion per year from ads. Google (YouTube) made $31 billion from ads in one quarter of 2024. The business model is simple: keep you on the platform as long as possible, show you targeted ads based on everything they know about you, and charge advertisers per impression or click. The more time you spend scrolling, the more ads you see, the more money they make. Your attention literally translates to dollars in their quarterly earnings reports. And you're giving it away for free.

So... what's happening in your brain?

Your brain has two attention systems: the bottom-up system and the top-down system.

Bottom-up (automatic): This is reactive attention. A loud noise, a flashing light, a notification. Your brain automatically orients toward it. This system evolved to detect threats. A rustling in the bushes. A predator. It's fast, automatic, and impossible to ignore. Social media hijacks this system. Every notification, every new post, every autoplaying video triggers your bottom-up attention. You can't help but look.

Top-down (voluntary): This is intentional focus. Reading a book. Solving a problem. Having a deep conversation. This requires effort. You have to actively resist distractions. Your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for self-control and focus) has to work hard to keep you on task. And it's exhausting.

Here's the problem: the more you rely on bottom-up attention (scrolling, reacting, switching), the weaker your top-down attention becomes. It's like a muscle. If you never use it, it atrophies. People who spend hours on social media every day lose the ability to sustain voluntary attention. They can't read a book. They can't work on a hard problem for an hour. They're stuck in reactive mode.

Neuroscientists have found that heavy social media users have reduced grey matter in the prefrontal cortex (the focus and self-control centre) and increased activity in the amygdala (the emotional, reactive centre). Their brains are literally being reshaped. This happens because your brain is neuroplastic, meaning it physically changes based on what you do repeatedly. Every time you perform an action, you strengthen certain neural pathways and weaken others. When you check your phone 100 times a day, you're strengthening the pathways for impulsive, reactive behaviour and weakening the pathways for sustained attention. The prefrontal cortex, which controls focus, self-control, and delayed gratification, actually shrinks when it's not used. Meanwhile, the amygdala, which handles emotional reactions and stress responses, becomes hyperactive because you're constantly in a state of mild anxiety (waiting for notifications, seeking dopamine hits, feeling FOMO). Brain scans show this structural difference. Heavy social media users have measurably less grey matter in key attention areas. It's not metaphorical. The physical structure of their brain has changed. They're becoming more reactive and less reflective.

The memory problem

But it gets worse. Your destroyed attention span doesn't just affect focus. It destroys your ability to remember and use what you consume. Memory formation requires attention. Deep attention. When you skim an article, half-paying attention whilst also checking notifications, your brain doesn't encode the information properly. It never makes it into long-term memory. You finish reading, feel like you learned something, then can't remember any of it an hour later.

This happens because of how memory works. Your brain has three stages: encoding (taking in information), consolidation (transferring it from short-term to long-term memory), and retrieval (accessing it later). Encoding requires sustained attention. When you're constantly switching tasks, your working memory is overloaded. Your prefrontal cortex is juggling too many things. Information gets processed shallowly. It's like trying to write something down whilst someone keeps shoving your hand. The writing is illegible. Same with memory. Shallow processing creates weak, unstable memories that fade within hours.

Even worse, consolidation (the process of converting short-term memories into long-term ones) happens during downtime and sleep. But you never have downtime. You're always consuming. Always scrolling. Always stimulated. Your brain never gets the quiet periods it needs to process and store what you've learned. So information just cycles through your working memory and disappears. You watch a 10-minute educational video, feel like you learned a lot, then can't recall a single specific point the next day. You read an article about something important, feel informed, then can't explain it to anyone. You scroll through hundreds of posts, each giving you a tiny hit of "interesting," but retain nothing. It all vanishes.

This creates the illusion of learning. You consume massive amounts of content. You feel informed. You feel like you're always learning. But you're not. You're just exposing yourself to information without encoding it. Real learning requires deep processing. You need to focus, think about what you're reading, connect it to existing knowledge, ask questions, and let it consolidate. Skimming 50 articles in shallow attention mode teaches you nothing. Reading one article with deep focus, thinking about it, and reflecting on it actually teaches you something you can use.

And this affects your daily life more than you realise. You can't apply knowledge you don't remember. You can't solve problems with frameworks you never properly learned. You can't have intelligent conversations about topics you only skimmed. You forget people's names seconds after meeting them because you weren't fully present during the introduction. You forget what you were supposed to do because your working memory is constantly overloaded. You repeat the same mistakes because you didn't properly encode the lesson from last time. Your brain is stuck in a constant state of shallow processing, acquiring nothing, retaining nothing, and applying nothing. You're consuming endless information but learning nothing useful.

How you can fix it

You can rebuild your attention span. But it requires deliberate effort. Your brain is plastic. It can change. Neuroplasticity works both ways. Just as your brain adapted to constant distraction, it can adapt back to sustained focus. The same mechanism that weakened your prefrontal cortex can strengthen it again. When you practise focusing for extended periods, you're literally growing new neural connections and increasing grey matter density in attention-related brain regions. Studies show that people who meditate regularly, read deeply, or practise sustained focus have measurably thicker prefrontal cortices. Your brain will resist at first because it's been conditioned to seek novelty. But with consistent practice, the neural pathways for deep focus become stronger, and the pathways for impulsive switching become weaker. The brain you have now isn't permanent. It's the result of how you've trained it. You can retrain it. But you have to train it.

1. Delete social media (or severely limit it)

This is the nuclear option. But it's the most effective. If you're serious about reclaiming your focus, delete Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. If you can't delete them, remove them from your phone. Make them hard to access. Use website blockers. Set a timer for 15 minutes per day, maximum.

The first few days will be brutal. You'll feel anxious. Bored. Restless. That's withdrawal. Your brain is craving the dopamine hits it's been getting all day. Push through. After a week, the cravings reduce. After a month, you forget you ever needed it.

2. Turn off all notifications

All of them. Texts, emails, app notifications. Everything. Check your phone on your schedule, not when it buzzes. Most people check their phone 96 times per day because notifications train them to. Break the cycle. Decide when you'll check your phone (say, every 2 hours), and stick to it. You'll be shocked how little actually matters.

3. Single-tasking

Do one thing at a time. When you're reading, just read. No music. No TV in the background. No phone nearby. When you're working, just work. No tabs open. No email. No Slack. Your brain needs to relearn what deep focus feels like.

Start small. 20 minutes of single-tasking. Then 30. Then 60. Build up the muscle. At first, it will feel uncomfortable. Your brain will scream for distraction. "This is boring. Check your phone. Open a new tab." Ignore it. Sit with the discomfort. Eventually, it fades.

4. Read long-form content (like right now!)

Books. Long articles. Essays. Things that require sustained attention. Start with 20 minutes per day. No skimming. No skipping paragraphs. Read every word. Your brain will resist. It's been trained to skim, to get the gist, to move on. Force it to slow down.

Reading is the best exercise for attention. It's voluntary focus. It's slow. It's deep. And it's the opposite of scrolling. If you can read a book for an hour without checking your phone, you've rebuilt your attention span.

5. Boredom training

Sit in silence for 10 minutes. No phone. No book. No music. Just sit. Stare at a wall. Let your mind wander. This is excruciating for most people. But it's essential. You need to teach your brain that boredom is okay. That you don't need constant stimulation.

Boredom is when your brain processes information, consolidates memories, and comes up with creative ideas. But if you never let yourself be bored (because you always have your phone), your brain never gets a chance to think. You're always consuming, never reflecting.

6. Physical exercise

Exercise increases BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which helps grow new neurons and strengthen connections in the prefrontal cortex (your focus centre). People who exercise regularly have better attention spans, better working memory, and better impulse control. Even 20 minutes of walking improves focus.

7. Meditation

Meditation is attention training. You focus on your breath. Your mind wanders. You notice it wandering. You bring it back. Repeat. That's the exercise. Noticing distraction and redirecting focus. Research has consistently shown that just 10 minutes of daily meditation improves attention span, reduces mind-wandering, and can even increase grey matter in areas of the brain associated with focus and self-control.

8. Setting environment rules

Phone goes in another room when you're working. No laptop in bed. No TV during meals. Create environments where focus is the default, not distraction. Your environment shapes your behaviour. If your phone is always within reach, you'll always reach for it. Make it inconvenient. Add friction.

The advantage

Here's what nobody tells you: most people have destroyed their attention spans. Most people can't focus for more than a few minutes. Most people are distracted, reactive, and mentally exhausted. And that means if you can focus, you have a massive advantage.

Deep work (focused, uninterrupted work on cognitively demanding tasks) is becoming rare. And when something becomes rare, it becomes valuable. If you can sit down and focus for 3 hours straight, you can accomplish more in one day than most people accomplish in a week.

Think about it: while everyone else is checking their phone every 10 minutes, scrolling TikTok, and task-switching between 12 different things, you're doing one thing deeply. You're learning faster. You're thinking clearer. You're producing better work. You're solving harder problems.

Cal Newport (author of Deep Work) argues that the ability to perform deep work is becoming the superpower of the 21st century. The people who can focus will outcompete everyone else. They'll learn faster, earn more, and produce higher-quality work. And the gap will keep widening because most people are getting worse at focusing, not better.

You'll also just feel better. Constant distraction is exhausting. Your brain is always in low-level stress mode. Always reacting. Always context-switching. Never resting. When you reclaim your attention, you reclaim your mental energy. You feel calmer. More present. Less anxious.

And you'll start noticing everyone else. How they can't sit still. How they check their phone mid-conversation. How they can't watch a movie without scrolling. How they're always half-present, half-elsewhere. You'll realise you used to be like that. And you'll be grateful you're not anymore.

Unlocking your freedom

This isn't about productivity hacks. It's about freedom. Right now, you're a slave. You're controlled by notifications, algorithms, and dopamine loops. You don't choose where your attention goes. It's pulled from you, constantly, by systems designed to exploit your brain's weaknesses.

Reclaiming your attention is reclaiming your autonomy. It's deciding what matters to you, not what an algorithm decides matters. It's being able to sit with your own thoughts. It's being present with the people you love. It's doing work that actually means something, instead of just reacting to the loudest thing in front of you.

Most people will never do this. Why? Because it's uncomfortable. It requires effort. It means sitting with boredom instead of reaching for dopamine. It means choosing delayed gratification over instant pleasure. It means breaking habits that feel like part of who they are. So they'll keep scrolling. They'll keep checking. They'll stay distracted, reactive, and exhausted. And they'll wonder why they feel so unfulfilled.

You don't have to be most people.

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Related:

• The Hedonic Treadmill
• Creating vs consuming
• Consistency