Our Brains As Elastic Bands

Interference and distraction in the modern world

As my last post was on focusing the mind, it feels natural to spend this week on the very thing which hinders our concentration: distractions. 

The ability to control and maintain our attention is one of the most important of mental abilities. In many ways, modernization has made our life easier. With a simple click on the enter button, we are taken into the encyclopedia which is the World Wide Web. It is no secret that the internet, and technology in general, has drastically changed how we consume information. Just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, there seems to be a lurking dark side to this progression which we have yet to understand. A dark side which has little to do with what we consume, but rather with how these technologies manage to distribute information.

Though technology in general presents itself as a tool that helps with efficiency, technology is an interruption machine, wired for distraction. Before the internet people searched through books, listened to their professors, and spoke to their friends and colleagues to garner knowledge. This process of information gathering strengthened our ability to think logically and helped us make connections between separate ideas in order to create a logical whole. And while today we have a whole array of information right at our fingertips, more than we could ever have dreamed of just some decades ago, it simultaneously creates a poverty of attention. In the present, our thinking processes have begun to mimic how we scour the internet. Not only do we become impatient when, say, a page does not load, but our brains go from one idea to another, unable to concentrate on a single line of argumentation for a long period of time. Our mind, then, seem to excrete thoughts in the same way the internet gives out information: in quick outbursts of disconnected thought.

Though on face value, these shifts into modernization seem to outweigh the cons, it is important to remember that our success when pursuing a goal depends almost entirely on how we deal with distractions. Last week I listened to a podcast by Sam Harris (#207 for those interested), with Adam Gazzley, a neuroscientist. In it he makes a contrast which struck me as particularly interesting: the difference between interference and distraction. Goal interference, as he calls it, happens when you consciously decide on a goal, and something interrupts you, preventing you from reaching it. Such an interference can occur both internally or from an external stimulus. However, if the interference does not lead to a change in our subsequent action, then it is a distraction. While interruptions/interferences entice us to change our behavior and deviate from our original task, distractions can occur without any subsequent complications. Needless to say, these interruptions make completing a task take far longer than need be. In the podcast, Gazzley states this is because our brain is entirely unable to multitask. Humans are incapable of parallel processing. Parallel processing requires, what Gazzley calls, “top-down” thinking. While we can bite on the end of our pen while writing an article, or at times listen to music, both of which do not require top-down thinking, we cannot write to a friend while simultaneously writing an article, which does require top-down cognitive control. When we shift from one top-down task to another, we alternate between different neural networks controlling these actions which cannot be activated at the same time. Frequent “neural network shifting” comes at price. It weakens our ability to concentrate for long periods of time, and thus make linear judgements. Gazzley warns that these interruptions already occur when you hear a notification, even if you do not open it. 

Unfortunately, the technologies, and especially the applications, we use on a daily basis are designed towards distraction. It works in their best interest if we continually check them. TikTok, for example, has catered their entire infrastructure around our short attention span. None of the videos are more than a minute long, though the majority are around twenty seconds, the algorithm is catered towards the viewer, and there is a never ending pool of entertainment. Even if you swiped everyday for the rest of your life, you would never get to the end. This dynamic nature creates an environment of not only constant endorphins, but enticement to check what is new. 

Everything said, there is hope. For the same reason our brains have managed to adapt to these changes in such a short period of time, they can also change back and alter overtime, if trained. Our brains are highly elastic. Restricting our time online, and spending more time reading, writing with a pen or pencil, and not with a keyboard, etc., and performing those tasks which require deep focus, can restore our brains, and in the process carry us towards our goals. 

As for me, I wrote this article in about three hours (give or take), while checking my phone a total of fourteen times. Interferences lurk in dark corners. We ought to either strip ourselves from all forms of distractions, or train a strong mind against them. Or, preferably, both.