I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but many of us can no longer focus on anything fully. Let me underline this: I’m not saying every single one of us is affected to the same degree, but I am trying to address a common struggle shared by many people. We start reading a book, and by the second page, our hand reaches for the phone. We watch a film, and right at the most suspenseful moment, we feel the urge to check our notifications. Even when we are immersed in a deep conversation with someone, a quiet restlessness echoes somewhere in the background of our minds: Am I missing something else? In recent years, one of the sentences we hear most often in clinical settings is this: “I think I might have ADHD.”
So, have we really undergone some kind of biological mutation, or has our attention been stolen? In this article, I want to explore whether attention deficit is merely a clinical diagnosis or also a sign of the collective exhaustion of our time.
Let us begin by making an important distinction. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with strong genetic roots. However, a large part of what we now complain about may be what Johann Hari calls “acquired attention deficit.” Research by Dr. Gloria Mark at the University of California reveals just how serious the situation has become. In 2004, the average span of attention on a screen was about two and a half minutes; in recent years, that figure has dropped to an average of 47 seconds. In other words, it is not simply that we struggle to focus on one task; rather, our minds exist in a constant state of fragmentation.
In his book Stolen Focus, Johann Hari refuses to see this merely as a problem of individual willpower. According to him, our attention is being deliberately fractured by the system that major technology companies have built around what is now called the “attention economy.” Apps are designed to trigger dopamine loops in the brain. Every notification, every act of infinite scrolling, places the prefrontal cortex—the region responsible for focus—into a constant cycle of stimulation and collapse.
Dr. Gabor Maté, in Scattered Minds, approaches attention deficit from a more biopsychosocial perspective. In Maté’s view, attention difficulties may be a kind of adaptive mechanism the mind develops in response to the high-stress environment of the modern world. The mind, seeking protection from emotional overwhelm or stress it cannot adequately process, may choose to remain “outside,” that is, unfocused. From this perspective, our inability to concentrate may actually be a cry for help from an overburdened system.
This fragmented state not only robs us of what Cal Newport calls the capacity for “deep work,” but also leaves us with a chronic sense of incompletion—that endless tension of the Zeigarnik effect I mentioned in my previous article. And it is at precisely this point that we must recognize a vital threshold: reclaiming my attention is about far more than deleting an app from my phone or turning off notifications. It is an act of reclaiming ownership over myself and my time. It is a determination to sit once again in the director’s chair of my own life.
What is healthy, and what can we do?
First of all, we must approach ourselves with self-compassion. Blaming ourselves every time we cannot focus only increases stress, making the mind even more scattered. Instead, we can accept that our attention is a form of capital that can be stolen—and develop protective shields around it. We can practice focusing on a single thing at a time, experiment with digital fasts, and give our minds permission to remain in empty space, unoccupied by constant stimulation.
Here, the practices of “presence” and the concept of mental integration emphasized by the renowned psychiatrist Daniel Siegel can offer guidance. According to Siegel, attention is one of the most powerful tools for reshaping the architecture of the brain. Based on the principle of neuroplasticity, whatever we give our attention to is what our brain develops around. Siegel’s Wheel of Awareness exercise invites the mind to the observing center of a wheel. Instead of being swept away by the noisy stimuli at the rim—phone notifications, chaotic thoughts, external demands—it teaches us to remain at the center and direct our attention intentionally.
Practices of presence strengthen the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, the brain’s emotional center, helping transform us from reactive individuals into responsive ones. When a notification appears, instead of reaching for it reflexively, we become able to notice our actual need in that moment and say, “I choose to keep reading this line right now.” In Siegel’s language, this is a form of mental integration. These practices help gather the fragmented mind back together, regulate the nervous system, and free us from that constant state of hypervigilance.
As far as I know, there is not yet a prescription that directly addresses exactly what I am describing here, though of course there is a great deal of evidence supporting different parts of it, and I have drawn from those findings while writing this. Still, I want to emphasize that this particular part is entirely my own interpretation. Not only as individuals but also as a society, we are all functioning below our potential because a portion of our mental capacity is constantly being consumed by the effort to filter out irrelevant stimuli.
In truth, there is no need for so many of us, at this micro level, to remain exposed to these constant tensions, exhausting our minds, ourselves, and the people we love. For my own part, I have learned this once again: protecting my attention is an act of drawing a compassionate boundary around myself. When I accept that I do not have to keep up with everything, that I have the right to leave space in my mind, we can begin to rise back into our potential.
Perhaps the greatest revolution is simply to devote five uninterrupted minutes to one single thing—for example, to ourselves, the one reading these lines right now. When we can do that, we may become more useful both to ourselves and to our bond with the world, and we may begin to elevate our potential once again.
Kaynakça
- Hari, J. (2022). Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again.
- Maté, G. (2019). Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder.
- Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.
- Mark, G. (2023). Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.
- Newport, C. (2016). Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.