by Claire Marcellini (’26) | October 6, 2023
Have you ever been tempted to pull out your phone during class to catch up on texts or see what you’ve missed on social media? Have you ever started to read a message from a classmate but somehow ended up on Instagram? Undoubtedly, phones and other technology bring major distractions that prevent students from succeeding in many areas of their lives.
Simply checking your screen can trigger chemical releases in your brain—it’s a vicious cycle. When you give in to the temptation of checking texts, your brain releases a surge of dopamine, a feel-good hormone. This gives you a temporary sense of reward, leaving you wanting more. Not only does this affect you negatively for a short period of time, but in the long run, it also acclimates your brain to constant diversions and habitual task-switching. Essentially, you become a chronic task-switcher. Every time you surrender to that urge and check your emails while doing math homework, your brain is forced to shift gears and stop what it was previously doing, impeding the overall speed and quality of your work. What should have been a thirty-minute assignment turns into a one-hour ordeal.
With a sharp increase in mental health advocacy, more people have been seeking medical advice and support. Rising ADHD diagnoses are causing a shortage of medications such as Adderall and Ritalin, a phenomenon that is starting to be called the “ADHD epidemic.” Attention spans have fallen since the early 2000s, a trend that Gloria Marks, a professor of informatics at UC Irvine, explored in one of her studies. She tracked people while they used an electronic device, noting each time their focus shifted. The recorded average was two and a half minutes. Recently, however, this experiment was repeated, and researchers found that the average attention span was shortened by 47 seconds, a decrease of over thirty percent. This alarming decline in attention is a substantial problem.
This brings up a crucial question: is there any way for people to regain their focus? In brief, the answer is yes. The ability to concentrate is still present, but many people have forgotten how to focus. Making changes in your daily routine, such as removing your phone from the room, can help your focus. For most people, having your device facedown is not sufficient, as the buzz of a notification can ruin your focus in an instant. It is important to establish a habit of deliberately ignoring your phone. In essence, giving in to the temptation comes down to muscle memory and the comfort of your device. Try this out, and over the course of a few weeks or months, see if you have gotten better at concentrating and not reaching over to scroll through social media.