Another ding, another beep, another notification prying for attention. Even as I sit here, writing this post, all my technology continues to notify me of text messages, emails, likes on a post, and more. In our current age of technology, we are constantly stimulated by one thing after another, leaving no time in between tasks to decompress. Even when we have a moment to sit without thoughts we go out seeking a stimulus to keep our eyes and minds occupied. We no longer have a tolerance for long forms of content, such as reading novels. We have become too easily distracted by our dinging world and have stopped exercising our attention. Everything is now consumed in only a few seconds. Due to this, it has become much hard to be an active reader and a deep thinker. In fact, we believed to be entering a new era where “people of different ages have different brains.” 

With younger generations growing up with all of this instant gratification, it is actually changing their brain chemistry, and not in the best way. This new gap in the generations leaving older people with some of the advantages. Our world is now filled with constant demands on our attention and it is ultimately up to us to break the addictive cycle and regain our ability to focus. Research has shown that even just having our cell phones near us can impair our cognitive capacity, similarly with the effects of lack of sleep. This, and everything else that constantly demands our attention, is impacting our brains most detrimentally to our focus and ability to produce deep work.

Why is this important? It is important because it is hard to create innovative things without the aid of deeper thinking. Deep work requires a distraction-free concentration that cannot be achieved otherwise. Deep work pushes “cognitive capacities to their limit” and in doing so, it opens doors to truly improving your skills and creating work that is hard to replicate.

Sources:

Budd, Ken. “Attention Spans, Focus Affected By Smartphone Use.” AARP, 27 Nov. 2017, http://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-2017/mental-focus-smartphone-use.html.

Harris, Michael. “I Have Forgotten How to Read.” The Globe and Mail, 9 Feb. 2018, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/i-have-forgotten-how-toread/article37921379/.

“Introduction and Chapter 1.” Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport, Grand Central, 2016, pp. 5–25.

Kristen Duke,  Adrian Ward. “Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking (Even When It’s Silent and Facedown).” Harvard Business Review, 14 June 2018, hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking.