The millennial’s missing attention span, are we so easily distracted?

What am I doing right now? I’m watching a YouTube video whilst writing this blog post. Why am I doing both? Because I’ve been raised into a life with so many options for distraction, for doing multiple things at once, for being able to pause, rewind, rewatch any form of medium. So let’s chat about it, the millennial’s attention span (I mean not exclusively millennial, but it makes for a nice post title).

Hello distraction… you rang?

I was born in the 90’s, a time of VHS tapes, walkmans and floppy disks. Technology was slowly emerging into the way we know it now, by the time I entered into my teen years, I could even store my songs on my phone and my walkman had been replaced by a handy little USB stick MP3 player thing. Honestly, guys, it was a time to be alive! I joke, but I actually loved seeing the tech grow and change to become the weird devices we carry around so fondly in our pockets today. What I’m doing here is setting the scene for growing up in a world where the technology around me was shaping into something that could pretty much do everything for me. The novelty of seeing a TV show only once and then waiting for a re-run was lost pretty fast when things like Sky+ and Netflix entered into our world. Family board games could just as easily be played on a group game of Words with Friends. And long conversations of dedicated chatter because you couldn’t move from the landline phone, can be replaced by a mobile phone call that can be taken whilst doing a plethora of other things.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the exclusivity of having our attention dedicated to purely one thing. Is it possible to watch a film at home without playing Candy Crush at the same time or scrolling through Instagram? Sure! But how many of us will actually put our phones away for a full two hours and feel totally gripped that whole time? Our brains are becoming more and more trained to be able to cope with multiple mediums at once, one thing just isn’t enough for us anymore. I’m making sweeping gestures here and I know not everyone is like this of course, but humour me.

Please set your phones to silent and enjoy the film!

I think this may be why I still love going to the cinema so much. Sure there’s the excitement of the big screen, the surround sound, the perfectly popped popcorn. But the cinema experience is also one that is distraction-free for everyone in that room (unless they’re one of the few arse-holes who go on their phone during the film screening, but don’t be that guy). When we enter the screen room we are committing to a few hours of enjoying art, focusing on the film and not posting on social media. Sure there may be a post or two before the lights go down, but it is the rule of the cinema that you keep that smartphone in your pocket.

I like that I am forced into only watching the film. There is nothing to take my eyes off the screen and therefore I absorb the art of cinema a lot more. I notice things that I may have missed if I’d have been reaching to check a text. I do find myself default picking up my phone when I’m watching a film at home, no matter how much I’m enjoying it and just scrolling absently mindedly through social media. Neither activity has my full attention until I realise I’ve missed something funny in the film and mentally scold myself.

Is it wrong to have an active mind?

I process my day to day ‘distractions’ by blaming them on having an active mind. I am constantly thinking of new content ideas, new video plans, new story ideas, new creative solutions. I feel like my brain is never really resting. I don’t do well with ‘rest days’, evident by the fact that I’m writing this blog post on what is meant to be my ‘day off’. But I feel like my brain is constantly on the go and I’m often thinking of multiple things at once and struggle to shut down.

I wonder if the way I have grown up and the technology that has become more easily accessible to me has influenced this nature of behaviour. From my teen years onwards there has been enough technology around me that on paper it would be impossible to be bored. I can jump from Animal Crossing to Netflix to Call of Duty to drawing to filming. The minute my brain goes idle, I can pick up my phone and do something else. I don’t think I’ll ever not be like this and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it either. I like doing multiple things at once, I like being an active creator in my own brain, but it does make me wonder if attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.

A year or so ago I was trying out a new councillor for my OCD. I was having the initial ‘survey’ with her to see what the next step would be. After describing myself to her and answering her questions she asked if I’d ever been tested for ADHD. I told her I hadn’t and asked why. She said a lot of the things I’d told her for my assessment flagged as symptoms of ADHD. I felt annoyed because I was there to talk about my OCD and that felt totally dismissed, but I also felt the things she had picked out were the things that I considered my creativity. I didn’t do anything about what she said and haven’t looked into it since – I also didn’t see her again.

Why am I adding this in? When I look back on this, I can’t help but think she felt like she needed to categorise my active mind, like it was her default reaction rather than to help with the reason I was seeing her. The way she spoke to me made me feel like there was something ‘wrong’ with having an active mind or ADHD, something that she wanted to put in a box and fix with her recommended treatments. It struck me then that ADHD or no ADHD, this woman was trying to strip back my personality and put me in a box for her report. I didn’t push this suggestion of hers any further because I didn’t feel the need to. I think our society and cultures are ever-changing and therefore so are we. For example, I’m glad I can also remember a time without smartphones and I think that means I don’t feel as addicted to my own. But the younger generations are glued to their mobiles and I’m sure generations after them will be too.

Times are changing, our attentions spans are most likely shortening. Are we getting lazy now that our devices can pretty do most things for us? Maybe. Can we stop it? Maybe. Honestly, I just wanted to write this down as more of an essay. So thank you if your attention span got you this far and you finished reading. Shout out in the comments if you did, would be interested to know!

plan it