Hello everyone, welcome to my first non-technical blog!!
Have you ever been in a situation, where you picked up your cellphone for some important work to be done and by the end of 20–30 min you end up using any app like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter? You might be there via any friends dm on Instagram or WhatsApp, or via any hyperlink. That’s so guilty, I know!!
Have you ever been in a situation, where you find it very difficult to do intense brainstorming tasks after an ample amount of playing any online game? Or plugged in some nice beat music while writing some boring college assignment 😒!!
Yes Yes, my friends, if you feel empathetic with the above situations you are somehow or intentionally suffering the problem of the topic of the blog “ATTENTION SPAN!!”.
First, let me explain to you why the situations above mentioned happen. This is all because of the pleasure hormone-dopamine, which is rushed in the brain when we watch a movie or play any game. Our brains, for centuries, have been programmed to crave those feel-good emotions as a mode of preservation. When we make the right decisions in life, like eating well, we find happiness. Dopamine to our brain is just like money to a human being. The more you give him, the more it is insufficient to him.
Your ability to focus depends primarily on your brain’s reaction to dopamine. Imagine a steep drop after watching a movie followed by doing some focus driven tasks!! This is pretty much related to dopamine. Now let’s drive to the main crisp of the blog.
The whole technical world is truncated deliberately to make the situation worst. But how?? After Tik-Tok was banned in India, many tech giants like Instagram, YouTube monetized by launching YouTube shorts and Insta-reels for the people who loved making videos on Tik-Tok and the audience who loved watching Tik-Tok. This tells us how deeply these companies are involved in this tech-driven world.
To analyze or know about anything in an unbiased manner we need to study its past deeply. So here is a small crisp story of how Facebook was started.
Mark Zuckerberg was very pleased by coding from his initial days. The actual Story starts from when he got admitted to Harvard University (He took a major in psychology). In that time around 2002, Mark came with an innovative idea to connect all Harvard’s students through an online community. Later he came with the idea of the Face Mash App-a website that lets Harvard students judge the attractiveness of each other to create rankings. As he didn’t get permission to use student photos, unsurprisingly many were not happy with his work. Some of you might have noticed that apart from being from a coding background he chose psychology. Now many of you can relate this Facebook’s algorithm of sharing your details and seeking out attention from known people around you and the happiness that gives a dopamine rush to your brain, whenever someone gives a like or comment on your picture or post. This is how the Facebook login page looked back then
After 2002, the internet generation was slowly evolving and Facebook became more and more popular around the globe and it caters to around a 50-Million user base. Many companies saw this as a good marketing space for them, and they collaborated with Facebook. This was their revenue model from the beginning. Mark understood the importance of the data and therefore he purchased Instagram and WhatsApp.
There is another story from a Google engineer who was given the work to design Gmail for Google. One day he randomly came up with the idea of giving notifications for every mail that was received, and indeed that is a digital bird song in today’s world. He realised that they were responsible for more than 10 billion interruptions to people every day.
Now after a brief intro, let’s dive into the problem they are creating in the modern world!!
After seeing youth interested in social media app many apps were launched like Snapchat. These apps are so intelligently designed so as to get the maximum benefit from them. The engineers knew that every time you put down your phone, they will lose their revenue streams so they decided to put bait for the users via pushing random notifications. Our distraction is their fuel, that is why they only hire one of the best coders to make up an addictive algorithm.
Problems associated with this are elaborated below:
When once we are in a loop, according to the researchers it takes on an average of 23 minutes to get back to the same level of focus you had before you were disturbed. This indeed reduces our efficiency. It can also lead to various life-threatening problems like ADHD, anxiety, memory disorder and many more. To add to the list, it causes depression among young lads as in social media no one shows the shady side of themselves, they are just the highlights for the high-intense cricket match. They all tend to compare themselves to the one who is living their life to the fullest.
Solutions to the problem!!
Yes Yes, I agree we cannot solve all these problems in a jiffy, but one should take the initiative and trigger the spark to make it fire.
The “21 days to form a habit idea” seems to have come from a 1960 self-help book by cosmetic surgeon Dr Maxwell Maltz. “He recommended that people practice self-affirmations and positive behaviours for 21 days to make them habitual. It would take about 21 days of practice for an old mental image of ourselves to dissolve and a new one to ‘gel’.” In short, it takes 21 days for any good or bad habit to inculcate into ourselves. So if one follows these habits you will start to improve:
1. Dopamine Reward: Reward yourself with 20 mins insta break only after doing some good brainstorming work.
2. Record Yourself: While studying record yourself, first of all, it keeps you away from your phone. Also, it gives you confidence, but it is very subjective.
3. Digital/Dopamine Detox: Just like physical body detox, we need to do dopamine with our brain (this is one of the biggest challenges). One should refrain from using any kind of digital device as much as possible. This will clear our brains.
4. Wake Up Call: Many people including myself, have the habit of using a mobile phone just after waking up which is a deadly habit one should not do have as it keeps the brain more dopamine demanding in the day ahead.
5. Customizable Muscle Memory: Muscle memory is a memory associated with our subconscious mind that is developed when we do any task repeatedly. Just like opening the phone’s lock screen, scrolling through insta reels. Instagram should be replaced with some productive app that is related to our goal.
6. Brain Optimization: It’s a pretty famous Japanese technique that preaches us to unlearn first rather than learn. To know more about it visit the link below
Yup, that all from my side hope we stop harming our body by taking control over this digital acid and focus more on our goals.
Thank’s for reading patiently!!! :-)