How to Rehab your Attention Span

Without throwing your phone into the ocean

We may spend all day speaking about how much social media and modern technology is to blame for our lack of ability to focus for extended periods of time. The algorithm is specifically designed to keep your attention. The platforms are nefariously constructed to ensure that you spend as much time with your eyeballs on their flashing blue lights. Many people report that when they do a “phone detox” they come out of it feeling much less depressed, anxious and neurotic and it they regain their ability to focus on things for longer periods of time. 

However, we must realise that wherever we shift blame, we also shift power. If these algorithms and technologies have all the blame, they also have all the power. One must contend with reality and not sit around wishing for fantasies. The reality is that the world currently is utterly integrated with the internet, social media, and phones. As a result, if you want to win in this world, you must understand how to use these technologies without letting them abuse you. As an adult, you must believe that you have the power and competence to do this. 

To help you in this endeavour, I have compiled a series of tools that have helped me preserve my attention span and ability to focus while living in the same world--fraught with the same temptations--as you. I have taught myself multiple languages, new skills, read many long books (thoughtfully and reflectively), written more than one hundred long form essays, and have overall preserved my ability to focus for hours on end at one task. And yet I do not live as a hermit in the woods with no phone or social media. How have I done this? Continue reading to find out.