One of the biggest issues I have been focusing on fixing within myself in the past couple of months is overstimulation and exposure to information. I cannot deny it is a very prevalent problem in my life that I only started taking seriously lately, but I also doubt I am the only one dealing with it. It simply is just the name of the game in this new technologically driven world. The would like to resort to saying that the world around me has the attention span of a goldfish, but in reality, I am the goldfish about in society's bowl of influence. My attention span and short-term recall capabilities are terrible now which is why I really started to think about it thoroughly and how I can break somewhat free of this technological addiction.
A wake-up call for me was last year when I had a communications class and we were beginning the research process for our semester-long research paper. I was having an incredibly hard time finding the proper research that matched the keywords I had written down about my subject. There was no problem figuring out the topics I wanted to discuss or how these two subjects would work well together, but my problem was I wasn’t finding research that covered both these topics. This led to a panic as the semester was picking up and I was falling behind on this paper after being really good the first couple of weeks in getting my assignments in. It has always worked to my favor that I’ve never really been afraid of asking questions out of fear of sounding stupid or being viewed in a certain manner, so in this case, I had no problem asking my professor if my research process was flawed even though it would seem like a fundamental everyone is taught in high school. As I was describing my situation and frustration he stopped me immediately and said something along the lines of, “where you are going wrong is expecting the information about your research paper to already be out there.” It instantly clicked with me and was, in hindsight, a smacking-the-forehead moment of “why didn’t I think of that.” My problem was that I was expecting everything laid out for me and all I had to do was quote some shit. I was expecting my topic, or my conversation to already have been extensively talked about, instead of coming to my OWN conclusions and my OWN journey with this research and evidence gathering. Spoon-fed syndrome at its finest and yet I was someone that always prided myself about being the opposite.
Again, this isn’t something I am alone in and I have observed it with many of my peers. In my opinion, millennials like myself are apathetic about the fact that there seems to be nothing new to discover and that everything is laid out for us. We grew up with google and I am fortunate enough to live in a time where things that I am wondering are one search away from an answer. The problem is that this has accustomed us to quick surface-level answers as opposed to actually understanding the subjects. How this quick searching fragmented searching in the past is that it made it really uncomfortable, or mentally straining to read anything for longer than a moment before having the impulsive urge to be distracted by something else. When you mix getting trapped in a rabbit hole and doom scrolling your focus is just overall zapped away.
The techno-addiction that I see myself afflicted with has made it so I cannot enjoy doing anything without having some noise or some screen on simultaneously. It is difficult for me to enjoy a video game and be engrossed in its world without having some youtube video on. Screen-on-screen action. Or being on social media as I am watching a show or a movie. I’ve seen memes or Tik-Toks or social media posts unknowingly displaying this disjointed over-stimulated amalgamation of information and entertainment that displays commentary about something or a snippet of a movie or show, while there is gameplay side-by-side or some goon nodding to what is being said. I am so lucky I never got into Twitch or streaming of the sort because that seems like the ultimate conclusion and final evolution of what I am talking about. Watching people play video games you like while giving commentary about stuff, talking to their audience, and running some movie, show, or music in the background. For the last couple years, I had a hard time concentrating on things and feeling overwhelmed about everything I want to do. I’ve had a hard time enjoying things or moments because I have to think about all the other things I also want to do simultaneously. And. Do. not. Get. Me. Started. About. Ads. Maybe, I’ll cover that thought later, but what I will say is the way they break the tempo of what you watch snaps you out of any morsel of focus you had for what you were watching. Overall, this is why I said, “enough” and started searching for methods to reduce the detrimental effects of this technological modernity.
Books I highly recommend reading (yes reading instead of listening to some YouTuber talk about them) if you are also interested in gaining your focus back is the First 20 Hours and Deep Work. My search started with how do I learn to learn? Anyways, what I got from them is that it is very important to be fully immersed and focused on whatever you do. Practicing turning everything off and just doing one task for a given amount of time has improved my workflow and learning. Another technique or strategy I implemented was replacing most of my searching with the Brave browser. No advertisements to distract at all times and no google showing you ads for the first results. I used a limiter app on my social media and meme app so I only use a half hour at most a day on these. I have an understanding that I need to partake in these circles, but for my own sanity I have to cut the usage and attention down to the bare essentials. My goal for this year is to be grateful for the simple and to appreciate boredom more.
-Fable 20230111