What If We Let Ourselves Get Bored Again?

I am still thinking about focus and attention spans and boredom. I read Joel’s post: The constant need for a source of entertainment and that got me thinking even more. I loved that he starts talking about this time in his childhood with no technology around, and he wandered around the fields, playing with bottle caps and imagining they were spaceships (I also loved The Jetsons! 🙌).

He asks himself these questions:

Why would I wash the dishes without watching a video at the same time? Why would I fold my clothes without listening to a podcast too? Why would I have lunch without scrolling away on social media? Why would I go outside without carrying my phone at all times?

And then he asks:

Why would I not try, though?

To me, there are different layers to these questions:

This reminds me of the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, where he argues that the ability to focus intensely is a skill that must be trained. His advocates on training ourselves to be able to focus so we can better perform cognitively demanding tasks. But even if we start having distraction-free “focus” sessions every day to train ourselves, we will struggle if we can’t free our minds from a dependence on distractions.

Cal recommends training our brains to tolerate boredom. Habits like constantly checking our phones or jumping between tabs, condition us to avoid boredom and seek novelty. This damages our capacity for deep, focused work.

My concern when I see younger people constantly seeking distractions is that they completely lost their ability to have one moment, any moment in a quiet state without looking at a screen or having something in their ears. And I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised if all this multitasking were done exclusively in their leisure times. But seeing them doing that while they work, for 8 hours a day, that’s concerning.

Personally, I do listen to podcasts while doing dishes or cleaning the house. I even save favorite episodes to listen to at the gym, as an incentive to go. But I don’t listen to 8 hours of podcasts or watch videos on the background while I’m at work, doing cognitive efforts.

So, it’s NOT about ALWAYS doing ONE thing at a time. If we avoid pairing tasks that interfere with each other, like reading emails (language processing) with listening to a podcast (also language-heavy), we should be okay.

That said, I think Cal Newport is right: if we are constantly in this distracted fully excited state all the time, we can’t slow down anymore, even if we want to.

I think that with the amount of instant stimulation we carry in our pockets today, it’s way harder to even realize that we are in that state. Some people might not even remember (or know) what it feels like to be calm, quiet, and simply present—just observing the world or listening to their own thoughts.

And it’s a challenge for all of us; we are all being bombarded with an excess of information and entertainment. I noticed a shift in my ability to sit down and focus on reading a book a couple of years ago when I was still using the main social media apps (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). I believe that deleting all those accounts four years ago helped me get back to enjoy reading again and embracing boredom sometimes.

I have been curating my online consumption patterns for quite a while now, and this post summarizes a bit my feelings about feeling hacked by the online world.

Anyway, thanks Joel for sharing your thoughts!

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Post 86/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #NoisyMusings #internet #attentionresistance

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.