Battling Back our Stolen Focus

This article is about a fifteen-minute read. If that level of commitment seems daunting, it was written for you.

I just completed an audiobook which is worthy of a write-up. It’s called Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari. In this book, Hari interviews some of the world’s leading cognitive psychologists, neurologists, and sociologists to try to identify the systemic causes of society’s rapidly degenerating ability to focus over the last two decades.

The flow-on effects of our lack of concentration are alarming, therefore the conversation about this needs to start in our communities now. So much of Gauḍīyā praxis relies on the ability to focus though hearing, chanting, and remembrance. Even though such absorption is blessed upon us, we should be equipped with tools to navigate the world we live in and mitigate the detrimental effects of our distractive environment. We should not be passive passengers on an out-of-control freight train driven by greedy tech companies toward an unknown destination.

To honestly address the current state of our ability to focus, I’ll do my best to succinctly summarise the twelve causes that Johann Hari investigates here. But that’s hard, as some ideas are complex, and require time and more words to articulate.

1.) The Increase in Speed, Switching, and Filtering

British writer Robert Colville argues it’s not simply our tech that’s getting faster—it’s almost everything. There’s evidence that a broad range of important factors in our lives really are speeding up: people talk significantly faster now than they did in the 1950s, and in just twenty years, people have started to walk 10 percent faster in cities.

Professor Earl Miller from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explains, “Your brain can only produce one or two thoughts” in your conscious mind at once. That’s it. “We’re very, very single-minded.” This is because of the “fundamental structure of the brain,” and it’s not going to change. But, for some reason, we took a term “multitasking”, coined by computer scientists in the 1960s, and applied it to ourselves. Switching from one task to another rapidly is, essentially, anti-human and results in habitually enforced deterioration of focus and cognitive performance.

Adam Gazzaley, professor of neurology, physiology, and psychiatry at the University of California, presents that we’re bombarded with an unprecedented amount of info-noise and our pre-frontal cortex is overwhelmed trying to filter out what’s relevant and reliable.

2.) The Crippling of Our Flow States

As a reaction to the 1980s academic community’s obsession with B.F. Skinner’s behaviourist model, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, head of psychology at University of Chicago, studied the ability of artists, rock-climbers and others whose hobby or occupation involved a high level of absorption. He called this state of extraordinary focus a “flow state” where time seemed to fall away and one lost perception of potential distractors.

I assume we’ve all experienced “flow” when we’re authentically acting according to our svadharma or natural occupational propensity. I feel this when reading, writing, or drawing. My son lights up on the mats training Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Sometimes, we’re blessed to experience this in devotional life, and these moments are life-changing. When our attention is compromised by a loud “ding” from our phone, this becomes increasingly difficult as we’re habituated to distraction and leave an “anti-flow” space in our heads in expectation of it.

3.) The Rise of Physical and Mental Exhaustion

Charles Czeisler, head of the unit on sleep problems at one of the major hospitals in Boston, teacher at Harvard Medical School, and advisor to everyone from the Boston Red Sox to the U.S. Secret Service warns that 40 percent of Americans are chronically sleep-deprived and only 15 percent wake up from their sleep claiming to feel refreshed. Since 1942, the average amount of time we sleep per night has shrunk by an hour. This has a severe effect on our ability to focus our attention. Czeisler claims, “If you stay awake for nineteen hours straight, you become as cognitively impaired—as unable to focus and think clearly—as if you had gotten drunk.”

We need to protect our sleep. It’s vital to so much of our embodied well-being. It might be an ego-crush to admit to ourselves that we’re not as empowered as Guḍākeśaḥ, a name for the mystical warrior Arjuna, but he was clearly not an ordinary person. We regular jivas need our Zs yet live in a world that seems to expect us to get less of them.

Fight back! Go to bed at a sensible time and keep that phone on a charger in the kitchen.

4.) The Collapse of Sustained Reading

The number of people who read books for pleasure is now at its lowest level ever recorded. Between 2004 and 2017 the proportion of American men reading for pleasure had fallen by 40 percent, while for women, it was down by 29 percent. A Gallup poll found that the proportion of Americans who never read a book in any given year tripled between 1978 and 2014. This has escalated to the point that by 2017, the average American spent 17 minutes a day reading books and 5.4 hours on their phone.

5.) The Disruption of Mind-Wandering

When we take in information, it helps to leave space for our minds to wander. This isn’t a flaw in reading, it IS reading. Drifting away from the text allows us to make sense of things in a way that relates to us. With no mental space, we struggle to contextualise meaning. Jonathan Smallwood, professor of neurology at Queen's University in Canada, says that this mind-wandering gives us time to consider what the author might say next, contemplate any contradictions and wonder how/if it will all come together in the end.

When I was a kid, I was an avid reader of J.R.R. Tolkien. I read and re-read his masterful fiction works with nothing to stimulate my conception of his characters besides his words. The only illustration in my copy of The Hobbit was the map at the front of the book. I had to render the image of Gollum in my mind, which made me, in a sense, a co-author. Maybe I should put that on my résumé?

When my children first saw the movies, it occurred to me that, for them, this co-creative experience was now lost. The characterisation of Gollum on film was fantastic but more of a passive observation than an experiential absorption.

Similarly, learning these days can far-too-often be influenced by rajasic bullet-point presentations which lack vulnerability and approachability. We’re deluged with so much info that this sort of didactic mode is easily lost in the noise. I’m going to admit here that, in the past when I’ve attended devotional seminars, I’ve secretly prayed to Kṛṣṇa that the projector malfunction, so the speaker would be impelled to surrender to the situation. Don’t judge me.

6.) The Rise of Technology That Can Track and Manipulate You

No matter how much effort we put into mitigating distraction, tech companies actively work against us—with thousands of intelligent engineers crafting algorithms designed to keep us absorbed in their endless, infinitely scrolling wash of ads and information. Their insidious and culturally irresponsible goal is to keep you engaged with their app. The more eyes on the app, the more ads get served, the more data they have to craft your psychological profile, and the more money they make.

Does this sound like a conspiracy?

Meet Tristan Harris, former Google engineer turned whistleblower. In his first year at Stanford University, circa 2002, he enrolled in a course that was held in a place on campus called the Persuasive Technology Lab. Here, the focus was on researching how to influence peoples’ behaviour without them even knowing. It was taught by behavioural scientist B. J. Fogg, who believed that digital devices could “be more persistent than human beings, offer greater anonymity,” and “go where humans cannot go or may not be welcome.”

Tristan paired up with another student named Mike Krieger and worked on class assignments. Later on, Mike paired up with another student, Kevin Systrom. Taking a key lesson from the course, they followed the heuristic of behaviourist B. F. Skinner: build in immediate reinforcements. If you want to shape the user’s behaviour, make sure they get hearts and likes right away. Using these principles, Mike and Kevin launched a new app of their own. They named it Instagram.

Tristan was freaked out at how much emphasis was being placed on manipulating human psychology and, instead, built an app that was designed to minimise distraction. It presented a straightforward summary of searched information in a single window, with no ads or links away that could send users down rabbit holes. Google got word of this and, in 2011, offered Tristan a job and bought his app for a sizeable sum of money.

Day after day, Tristan would watch as engineers proposed more interruptions to people’s lives—more vibrations, more alerts, more tricks—and they would be congratulated. The Google work culture was blatant and unapologetic about using all sorts of tactics to keep people looking at their products.

Eventually, Tristan had enough and decided to resign. Before he left, though, he sent out an email to his colleagues with a slideshow detailing his concerns that they were destroying future generations’ ability to focus. He appealed to their sense of humanity and questioned how they were knowingly “creating an arms race that causes companies to find more reasons to steal people’s time,” and it “destroys our common silence and ability to think.” He asked: “Do we really know what we’re doing to people?”

With that he left. What he didn’t know is that Google employees started sharing his slideshow around the different departments. The next day, he was inundated with messages that revealed that he’d tapped into a concern shared by many. His presentation caused at least a brief pause for many engineers to consider their ethos. They created a new position for him called “Design Ethicist”.

So Tristan returned, encouraged by the chance that he could have a positive influence on Google’s culture. But when he proposed ways that the products could be less interrupting, he was often met with blowback that his methods were at odds with Google’s bottom line ….. cha ching! Money. Simple.

While many of these executives would ban their own kids from the very tech they were creating, they still ploughed on in their quest to dominate society’s attention span for billions. Google is now worth more monetarily than most countries on Earth.

Like Mexican drug cartels, they are suppliers and peddlers of addiction. They’re purveyors of weapons of mass distraction.

They intentionally create a “voodoo doll” of you by analysing your click habits, everything you post online and how much time you spend looking at certain things. At first the doll doesn’t look much like you, but as you’re served a variety of options, all your behaviour is recorded. Eventually, it becomes spookily accurate, and they know what makes you tick, what makes you upset, what excites you, what you like to look at and what will distract you from your life outside their auspices.

7.) The Rise of Cruel Optimism

The idea of “cruel optimism” is to over-simply and shift the blame for the problem onto the individual. It characterises the tech companies’ attempts to abnegate themselves from any accountability for having created a crazy mess of the world's attention spans.

A similar issue is the rise in childhood obesity. Is it the fault of the children or of the food manufacturers, who purposefully design products to be convenient and addictive? We’ve never had a crisis of so many super fat kids in previous generations. It’s only been since our diets have been changed, advertisement has had mass influence and the quality of the “franken-food” on the supermarket shelves devolved into something more akin in intention to methamphetamine than sustenance.

We tell families to “eat healthy” but allow food manufacturers to keep pumping garbage into our kids by shifting the blame onto them and their parents.

Similarly, big tech tells us to “regulate our screen time” but then ferrets out increasingly sophisticated ways to keep us on screen.

8.) The Surge in Stress and How It Is Triggering Vigilance

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote, “You cannot talk about serious things with people who have not had dinner, because they lack the necessary tranquillity.” In other words, “first food, then philosophy”.

In a broader sense, when we’re alarmed about our survival, it’s hard to give ourselves permission to relax into a deep focus. To pay attention, we need to feel safe. We need to switch off the part of our brain that is on high alert for danger. Dr. Nicole Brown found that childhood trauma tripled the occurrence of ADHD symptoms.

For devotees of Kṛṣṇa, we should take assurance that we’re being looked after. The world we live in is fraught with anxieties, but we are sheltered if we want to experience what Kṛṣṇa himself reassures us throughout the sacred texts. “Do not fear.”

9.) Our Deteriorating Diets

If we eat a diet that causes regular energy spikes and crashes, we exhaust ourselves. Ultra-processed food is targeted at our primitive pleasure receptors. We should, instead, take the advice given by Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā (17.8):

Foods dear to those in the mode of goodness increase the duration of life, purify one’s existence. Such foods are juicy, fatty, wholesome, and pleasing to the heart.

Our brain is built from the minerals and nutrition in food. Offer sattvic foods to Kṛṣṇa, eat that, and we can Kṛṣṇā-ize our brains.

10.) Rising Pollution

There is growing evidence suggesting that pollution and industrial chemicals are significantly damaging our ability to focus. Professor Barbara Demeneix, winner of several major academic awards, explains, “At every stage of your life, different forms of pollution will affect your attention span,” and she has concluded this is a factor in why “we’ve got neurodevelopmental disease increasing exponentially…[including] ADHD across the board.” She said that we are now surrounded by so many pollutants that “there is no way we can have a normal brain today.”

Barbara also said, “Of over two hundred pesticides on the market in Europe, about two-thirds affect either brain development or thyroid hormone signalling.”

A Canadian study found that those who lived within fifty metres of a major road were more likely to develop dementia than people who didn’t.

Our body has to deal with unknown contaminants for which it’s not adapted. This steals our focus.

11.) The Rise of ADHD and How We Are Responding to It

From 2003 and 2011, diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increased in the United States by 43 percent. 13 percent of adolescents in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD, and most are given powerful stimulant drugs.

The argument of “nature” versus “nurture” applies. Is ADHD in their genetics, or are they over-stimulated by their environment. The scientific community is polarised on this issue, but the author, Johann, suggests that it could come down to both DNA and their adaptation to the world around them.

With regard to the staggering amount of medication being prescribed to these children, James Li, from the University of Wisconsin, explains, “We simply don’t know the long-term effects. That’s a fact.” People assume these drugs have been tested and found to be safe, but he explained, “there hasn’t been a lot of research done on long-term consequences to brain development.” This is especially concerning, he says, since “we’re so quick to give them to young kids. Kids are our most vulnerable population, because their brains are developing…. These are drugs that operate directly on the brain, right?”

There is much that could be written about this topic. I recommend you read the book from which my article is drawn.

12.) The Confinement of Our Children, Both Physically and Psychologically

When we were kids in the 1970s and 80s, we were let out of the house on weekends and all summer to spend time with our friends in suburban Houston. If we weren’t sick or injured, we were actually forced out of the house. Our parents only had a vague notion of where we were the whole day. As long as we came in before sunset, all was well.

Now, in many cultures of the world, it is considered bad parenting to leave your child unattended for a moment. By 2003, only 10 percent of U.S. children spent any time playing freely outdoors on a regular basis. Childhood now happens behind closed doors. Kids meet up with their school friends on screens after school under the auspices of Snapchat and online gaming.

Dr. Isabel Behncke suggests there are three main areas of child development where play has a major impact:

1. creativity and imagination: helps with problem-solving

2. social bonds: shapes our interactions with others

3. aliveness: how we learn to experience joy and pleasure

These aren’t optional augments to becoming a functioning human being, Isabel explained. They are the core of it. Play builds the foundation of a functional personality, and everything a child learns is built on this base. If we want to be a people who can pay attention fully, she argues, we need this childhood base of free play.

As devotees of Kṛṣṇa, our ability to focus is precious and sacred. Kṛṣṇa explains to his friend Arjuna before the battle of Kurukṣetra:

व्यवसायात्मिका बुद्धिरेकेह कुरूनन्दन ।
बहुशाखा ह्यनन्ताश्च बुद्धयोऽव्यवसायिनाम् ॥ ४१ ॥

vyavasāyātmikā buddhir
ekeha kuru-nandana
bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca
buddhayo ’vyavasāyinām

Those who are on this path are resolute in purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.

As a community of devotees, we need to have these discussions on how to navigate a world of distraction. We need a deep sense of purpose to drive this conversation. We owe it to ourselves, the guru-parampara and to our sweet Lord Kṛṣṇa.

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Image courtesy of Radhesyam Dasi

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