SOCIAL MEDIA & ATTENTION SPAN

Often when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, or when I feel like I am losing focus, I will close (or temporarily) deactivate all my social media accounts. I pride myself on being self-aware, so it’s not hard for me to realize the off-putting and unnecessary amount of time I give to social media on a daily basis. While it is sad, it is a reality our world lives in. As soon as we wake up, we check our phones. When we’re standing in line at the store to checkout, we check our phones. Waiting for a friend at a restaurant, we check our phones. Even when our phone gives absolutely no indication that we have an unanswered text or phone call, many people (myself included) will check our phone without even realizing it because we thought we heard a chime. In the technological era we live in today, deactivating a social media account is almost like discovering a new world. Suddenly our attention is re-directed to people and things; suddenly details that we would have for sure missed before are abruptly now as clear as day.
In trying to understand why our attention seems to be more fleeting, cognitive psychologists have posed this question: is attention based on location or object? Depending on your environment, the answer is both. If you find yourself in a stagnant position, it will be based more so on the region (Goldstein, 2015). If you are in a more chaotic position, it will be based on an object, or objects (Goldstein, 2015).
For example, imagine you are sitting in your kitchen enjoying a cup of coffee. You are by yourself and other than the low hum of your refrigerator, it is completely silent. What does your attention go to? Maybe you start thinking of a grocery list for next week. Maybe you look at your countertops and start imagining what you would change if you had the money to renovate your kitchen. Maybe you see a magnet on your refrigerator from Paris, which leads you down memory lane to the trip you took a few years ago. Perhaps you smell your trash, reminding you to take it out once you get dressed. Because there is nothing “grabbing” your attention, you can focus on what you want, and for as long as you want. Now let’s switch our environment to be a bit more disordered.
Imagine you are sitting on a packed subway car. Where are your eyes led? Do you notice the advertisements, or the graffiti written on top of them? Maybe to avoid eye contact with someone you stare at the subway map, and start making mental notes of neighborhoods you want to explore later. Do you have headphones in? – Or are you listening to the conversation the man two rows behind you is having on his phone? Are you looking at what people are wearing? Some dressed in suits, some with backpacks, kids in school uniforms, etc. Maybe you look to see the different ethnicities of people. Or if you’re like me, you come up with stories for each person, imagining where they are going or coming from, what their apartment looks like, what kind of job they have, etc.
The interesting thing about the above scenario is that here we would be using what Treisman calls Attenuation Theory (McLeod, 2008). In laymen’s terms, we are being more selective with what we are lending our attention to. In this case, you could simultaneously be looking at the advertisements, listening to the music in your headphones and paying attention to each subway stop, to make sure you don’t miss yours. You are focusing on three different things, but your subway stop is always going to be at the forefront. If you notice though, the one thing I failed to mention in either scenario was the use of social media. In this way, social media seems to go hand in hand with the shortfalls we find when trying to multitask. Doctors have noticed a dramatic increase in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other similar attention disorders in children and the main perpetrator is technology and the use of social media. In referencing to multitasking in the digital age, Clifford Nass stated, “the research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They’re basically terrible at all sort of cognitive task, including multitasking” (Wihbey, 2013).
Attention and our ability to categorize what to focus on is an interesting concept. How is it that a parent doing laundry two rooms down the hall can avert their attention to their two children arguing over a toy; yet, at the other end of the spectrum, a husband can pay attention to the score, names of players and constant movements of a basketball game, but not to his wife talking to him about their plans for the weekend? The answer is simple: our attention is bias. We pay attention to what we want, and when we want. If something is incapable of visually capturing our attention, we will only focus on what we deem to be worthy of our attention at that moment. In a way, the attention (or lack of attention) we distribute to things and people is our brains currency. It is the psychological version of supply and demand; as social media increasingly continues to play an active role in our lifestyle, so will the demand for our attention.

 

References:

Goldstein, E. Bruce. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

McLeod, Saul. (2008). Selective attention. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/attention-models.html

Wihbey, John. (2013, July 11). Multitasking, social media and distraction: Research Review. Retrieved from https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/multitasking-social-media-distraction-what-does-research-say

 

4 comments

  1. “Doctors have noticed a dramatic increase in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other similar attention disorders in children and the main perpetrator is technology and the use of social media. In referencing to multitasking in the digital age, Clifford Nass stated, “the research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits.”

    You bring up an excellent point that not only is justified by the research you have been provided but also by the current social media platforms. For example, Vine videos which were popular a couple of years back plays on the short attention span of individuals by only showing 5 second video clips, this phenomenon of short attention seeking videos helped capsulate how little attention we have for information processing. Twitter follows a similar pattern in which the premise is to express thought processes in less than 200 characters. Twitter essentially is a blog form for individuals with short attention spans because you’re limiting the amount of information people are taking in per tweet. Even dating apps like Tinder follow the same argumentative component about short attention span; simply making a quick decision of potential partners by looks rather by any other substance and the quickness of swiping left or right on potential romantic partners. To me everyone of these platforms shows our inability to remain focused for long periods of time.

    With so much information readily available we have now become at times unable to focus on specific things for long periods of time and therefore switch to short bursts of information that grab our attention before we move on. This is also common with Facebook and sharing posts (i.e news, articles, memes); political information have now been successfully taught and/or manipulated through the use of memes. To add to that, it’s not uncommon for individuals to simply read a headline of a Facebook post without checking the validity and reliability of said post.

    Wihbey, John. (2013, July 11). Multitasking, social media and distraction: Research Review. Retrieved from https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/multitasking-social-media-distraction-what-does-research-say

  2. Iman Ayman Chehouri

    This was a very interesting post. It made me look back and realize that I am very dependent on my smart phone in times where I have to wait to get something. Attention is a very important aspect in a person’s life. Personally, I feel like I suffer from attention deficiency and that might have to do with the great use of the cellphone, computer, or television constantly. As a result, I agree with your statement that attention and focus are two highly interesting subjects that people should focus on. It is truly surprising how usually, we focus on the things that interest us the most, whereas other tasks that might not interest us as much we tend to have a low attention span for and therefore, not have much memory of it at all. I really enjoyed reading this post.

  3. Angelica Breanne Mckeithen

    This was such an interesting read! I agree that it’s actually very difficult for me not to pull out my phone when I’m standing alone in a line, or waiting to pick up a food order at a restaurant. I feel like cell phones have increasingly become our security blankets. Whenever I’m standing in a line, surrounded by other people whose heads are angled down towards their phones, it makes me wonder what people did with themselves in these scenarios before cell phones. They probably would just stand there, letting their minds wander rather than the tips of their fingers on a screen.

    Attenuation theory is extremely fascinating, being able to multitask but yet also subconsciously measuring those tasks by importance shows just how amazing our brains are. It also shows just how deep advertisements can run in our psyches. We may not even notice ourselves digesting an advertisement because we believe we’re focusing harder on something else. With social media, as you have said, we are constantly demanding immediate attention. We have access to the world’s information at our fingertips, and I think this can thwart us from actually stopping for a second and trying to answer questions for ourselves. Maybe we perfect attenuation because there are so many outlets for our attention now. With the attenuation theory, we can now play Angry Birds, be on the phone chatting with a friend and walk through a subway station full of advertising – digesting it all at the same time. Media catches us wherever we go nowadays, and we very much participate in it’s efforts.

Leave a Reply


Skip to toolbar