It\u2019s the \u201cart\u201d that many of us assume <\/i>we\u2019ve managed to perfect.<\/p>\n
While you\u2019re doing your homework, your television\u2019s in front of you with the volume on high, and you are texting your friends about plans for Friday night. After the season finale gets boring, you choose to listen to your favorite CD and ditch texting your friend for scrolling through Twitter.<\/p>\n
Is your attention really <\/i>on all<\/i> these things? Can you honestly say that you\u2019re applying full focus to all these events happening before you?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re shaking your head yes, then you might want to reconsider.<\/p>\n
In National Public Radio\u2019s (NPR) piece, \u201cThink you\u2019re Multitasking? Think Again,\u201d neuroscientist Earl Miller says that it is impossible for humans to focus on more than one piece of information at a time.<\/p>\n
The proliferation of social media and mobile technology has led younger people to have shorter attention spans than the elderly.<\/p>\n
Social Times\u2019 infographic, \u201cHow Social Media Is Ruining Our Lives\u201d, reports that 25% of young people forget the names and details of close friends and family, simple tasks like leaving pots or pans on the stove, and even their own birthdays from time to time.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t surprised to learn that the average attention span today is present for five seconds \u2014 ten years ago it was 12 seconds.<\/p>\n
Because of the Internet\u2019s uncanny ability to distract the user, interruptions become habitual in our brains, which is injurious when it comes to completing daily tasks. Every time we start on something new, our brains have to renew themselves. This creates a cycle that in turn makes our minds hungry for new information just as soon as we\u2019ve received the old. Our need for information has sped up, but our ability to pay attention is compromised.<\/p>\n
Lacking the attention to focus on the more important things in life doesn\u2019t only rob you of your memory, but of fundamental social cues and skills you learn from interacting with others, says Daniel Goleman in his new book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence<\/i>. \u00a0Causing a person to feel less important or neglected because you have a notification to answer isn\u2019t proper social etiquette.<\/p>\n
In order to lead richer lives, we must learn to elongate our attention span and concentrate on what we have right <\/i>in front of us, first, <\/i>before anything else.<\/p>\n
Checking the urges we have for updating our newsfeeds and browsing through multimedia can helps us be at peace with the demands of both the virtual and physical realms. It won\u2019t be easy \u2014 but if we want to lead more fulfilling lives, it\u2019s something that we\u2019ve got to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s the \u201cart\u201d that many of us assume we\u2019ve managed to perfect. While you\u2019re doing your homework, your television\u2019s in front of you with the volume on high, and you are texting your friends about plans for Friday night. After the season finale gets boring, you choose to listen to your favorite CD and ditch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-forum"},"yoast_head":"\n