Not to be dramatic, but I think we all need to consider this:
The average person spends close to 5 hours per day on their phone.
Over time that adds up to about 76 days/2.5 months per year. Over a lifetime (if you live to be about the average of 80 years old) that adds up to nearly 17 years of your life.
I’m average too. According to the last weekly update my phone gave me, I have been spending about four hours per day on my phone. And when I did this math I was horrified.
Holy shit.
Am I going to stop using my phone or computer entirely? No. That’s not practical for me. It’s not practical for most of us. But knowing this does shift my perspective and I hope it can shift yours too.
To me this emphasizes the importance of giving attention away with consideration, right? As Bo Burnnham famously explained a few years ago - now that there isn’t more land to colonize, our attention is the next money-generating frontier.
To be clear there is obviously great content out there that can make our lives better in a variety of ways. By providing inspiration, education, and entertainment that is worth giving our attention to. But the mindless scroll with no intention – that is the thing we can be more wary of.
Jenny' Odell’s book How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attenention Economy is a favorite of mine and I find myself going back to it again when considering this intention I want to tap into when it comes to my time spent online.
There is a lot at stake. Odell writes:
“It’s not just that living in a constant state of distraction is unpleasant, or that a life without willful thought and action is an impoverished one. If it’s true that collective agency both mirrors and relies on the individual capacity to “pay attention” then in a time that demands action, distraction appears to be (at the level of the collective) a life-and-death matter. A social body that can’t concentrate or communicate with itself is like a person who can’t think and act.”
With all of this in mind, this is what I’m doing. I’m sharing this for ideas and inspiration if you find yourself wanting something different too.
Ignore it, roll your eyes at it, or join me. Your life is up to you.
5 Ways to Reclaim Your Attention
1. Examine social media use
Jenny Odell:
“I am less interested in a mass exodus from Twitter and Facebook than I am in a mass movement of attention: what happens when people regain control of their attention and begin to direct it again, together.”
Leaving social media entirely isn’t going to work for me and it might not work for you either. It has for better or worse become the town square and an important means for communication. I am taking a close look at which platforms I use and how I show up in those spaces though. I’m limiting my scrolling time and slowing down on sharing my thoughts and information. I’m also more discerning about who I follow and why, which is a bit different for each platform. If I find myself bored and going to click on an app I’m trying to ask myself if there is a reason it needs to be that or if I could occupy my time and mind with a book, podcast, or by calling someone instead.
2. Stay present with people
Have you ever been out to dinner with a friend and they leave their phone on the table? Or they pick it up to look at a text during your conversation? I don’t know about you, but I notice when this happens and it doesn’t feel great. To be fair, I’ve also been the friend who has done this.
Lately, I make a point to put the phone away or shut my computer when I’m with someone else to make sure I’m truly present and listening.
In her book, Odell describes this sort of action as a way to break outside the cultural norm and display that there are other possibilities.
- “For a moment the custom is shown to be not the horizon of possibility, but rather a tiny island in a sea of unexamined alternatives.”
Maybe no one else notices, but it’s made a difference for me regardless.
3. Give more time to learning new things
In the book, Odell makes a good point that what we give our attention to shapes our reality. I don’t want to leave this up to the algorithm, so I’m blocking time in my calendar just to read books, watch YouTube videos, or listen to podcasts about things that are interesting or inspiring to me.
This shouldn’t be boring and doesn’t even have to be educational. It could be reading a celebrity memoir, watching a YouTube video about traveling in Scotland, or deep-diving into a podcast about philosophy.
It’s also a good reminder that we are all living in our own realities, shaped by our own experiences, past interactions, and what we are paying attention to at any given moment.
“..we are each a confluence of forces that exceed our own understanding.”
4. Spend more time outside and notice what’s there
I’m putting my phone down when I take a walk every morning, when I step out the front door to my car, and even when stand outside at the dog park. Staying chronically online can disconnect us from our environment, making it hard to notice what is actually happening around us.
I want to know what the weeds are called that grow up out of the sidewalk in the city I live in. I want to know what trees I’m walking under and how old they are. I want to see my neighbor’s faces when I pass them and say hello. I want to understand where I am and who I share that space with.
“Bioregionalism is first and foremost based on observation and recognition of what grows where, as well as an appreciation for the complex web of relationships among those actors. More than observation, it also suggests a way of identifying with place, weaving oneself into a region through observation of and responsibility to the local ecosystem.”
5. Invest more in long form
Gaining a deep understanding of something and grasping the full context takes time.
“It’s a lot like breathing. Some kind of attention will always be present, but when we take hold of it, we have the ability to consciously direct, expand, and contract it.”
The longer we hold our attention on something, learn about it, or think about it, the more we truly get it. I’m spending more time with books, long podcasts, and deep dives over the constant stream of sound bites and clips that the algorithm dishes up.
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