Tracking My Attention This Week Over this past week, I started paying close attention to what exactly I spend my time focusing on. I realized that when I try to complete work or any task in my room, I get distracted by many different things. I think about how I need to clean and organize specific things, I get distracted by the people I live with, and I become interested in what everyone else around me is doing. Then, I go on my phone as a break or when an assignment becomes too much for me to complete, and then get distracted with Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram reels, group chats, and online shopping. I decided to see how much better I could focus in a different setting, so the next day I went to Cosmic Charlie’s- my favorite coffee shop in Geneseo. I was much more focused on my essay that I needed to complete, and less focused on my phone and on the people around me. This helped me realize how much setting affects our attention. I decided to start being more intentional about where I went to complete a task.
Another important thing to note is that before Lent this year, I decided to give up TikTok. That means 40 days without TikTok. I quickly realized that I would subconsciously press the app on my phone whenever I was bored or needed a break from whatever I was doing, so I literally needed to remove the app from my homescreen to avoid using it. I realized how useful this feature is on iPhones- you don’t need to uninstall the app and lose any data, but you can remove it from your homescreen so you can’t see it. You can still look up the app, then press on it, but that takes more work and thought, and is something I could actually control. I found that during this time, I spent more time on Instagram reels, kind of as my TikTok substitute. The thing I realized about reels is that there are considerably fewer ads. This means I wasn’t compelled to then go on TikTok Shop, which was another part of TikTok I spent way too much time on. Yes, I still spent about an hour a day total on reels, but I can confirm that this is much less time than I was spending on TikTok a day.
After Lent, I went back on TikTok and was greeted by ad after ad. I quickly realized I didn’t want to go back to spending hours a day on this app, and haven’t been on it since. I go to sleep earlier, interact with the people around me more, and am bored a lot more, which is a good thing. It is okay to be bored and take up different hobbies, and in my opinion, this is much healthier than spending every bored second scrolling on TikTok. During this week of collecting data and intentional observation about what I pay attention to, I realized even more about how much better my life has become because of this decision, and how much more time I have.
What I Choose Versus What Pulls Me In One of the more interesting parts of this assignment for me was thinking about what “I agree to” versus what I basically am forced to pay attention to. I would say that I definitely choose to focus on and prioritize my assignments, my conversation with my long-distance boyfriend over the phone, and planning my days out. That being said, these things also compete with distractions that feel almost impossible to ignore.
Even though I have turned off most of my notifications aside from messages and phone calls (because they were driving me crazy), I still find myself checking my phone constantly for no good reason. It is one of my very strong habits that feels impossible to stop. Then, when I do get a notification, it immediately takes my attention away from whatever I was previously engaged in. Whether I am in the middle of a conversation, assignment, or task, checking my phone is a constant habit that I haven’t yet learned how to break.
This idea connects a lot to Henry David Thoreau and his ideas about how outside forces shape our attention. Even though he was talking about things like a telegraph, this still seems very relevant now. Our cell phones are more advanced than a telegraph, but it is all the same idea. Technology is constantly competing for our attention and focus.
Digital Distractions & “Attention Merchants” Tim Wu, author of Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, confronts this idea a bit differently than Thoreau. Instead of us needing better habits when it comes to technology, Wu argues that there should be laws and regulations to limit businesses from trying to grab our attention because they are gaining profit at the expense of our freedom, time, and money. This makes me immediately think about TikTok and how they developed their own shop in which they are constantly advertising their products using influencers and ads.
Even when I think I am in control, I know that there are systems in place that are designed to keep me hooked. Whether it is the simplicity of being able to refresh the page, or constant ads, it is all designed to do the same thing and make it impossible to say that I’m choosing what exactly I pay attention to.
Am I Actually In Control? After tracking my attention over the past week, I would say I do feel more in control of at least acknowledging what has my attention. Am I able to say I only pay attention to what I want to pay attention to? No, and I think this is nearly impossible in this day and age- but I do think that is okay. I think it is most important to acknowledge what grabs your attention the most, and from there I can find ways to stay more engaged in what I want to, and less on what I don’t want to. I am aware now of how often I turn to my phone, scrolling habits, and advertisements. Ultimately, I am proud of my decision to stay off TikTok, and I know that it has made a huge difference in my life.**
Will Anything Change? Honestly, I don’t think this assignment will necessarily change my current habits, but I think that is okay. It has definitely made me more aware of what I pay attention to. I am more conscious of what and when I am getting distracted, and why that is.
My big takeaway is that attention isn’t just about discipline in your own habits. There are so many external forces, like algorithms and ads, that are constantly competing for my attention. For whatever reason, I feel some sort of power now that I can recognize this. Instead of feeling like I failed when I get distracted, I know it is more about me trying to navigate a system designed to make me lose focus. At the end of the day, I am not perfect at managing my attention, but I am more aware of it than I was before.