Module 1 – Aug 31. 2025
Every time I open my laptop to do my homework, I like to reward myself with five minutes of phone time. Five minutes turns into twenty, and sometimes I end up just closing the laptop.
This reward is a painful reminder of how easily distracted I have become. But I know I am not alone in this struggle.
In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari explains that it’s technically not our fault that our attention spans are shrinking. Instead, Hari shifts the blame to how technology has forced us into a fast-paced lifestyle.
Technology floods us with more information than we can meaningfully absorb. With how easily accessible social media is, and how news sources have expanded their ways of reaching younger and broader audiences, staying up to date with the newest information has become an expectation.
As a society, we see how social media rewards speed when the most active accounts receive the most likes and consistent interactions. Hari says that among the staff at Google, their motto is, “if you’re not fast, you’re fucked.”
This is strikingly true when it comes to content creation. Everyone is trying to release the best content as fast as they can, and as a result, it becomes difficult to come up with innovative ways to keep audiences engaged. Not only do audiences start to see the same type of content, but the overconsumption of consistent media roll-out has given media consumers burnout, especially when it comes to news.
As a journalist, the conversation surrounding information overload has been prevalent in the past few years, considering the state of our country and external affairs. Negative news drives audiences away and has deterred them from staying consistently informed, leaving them with a feeling of impending doom every time we turn on our phones and another breaking news story dominates the platforms.
Moreover, the constant flow of content does more than just reshape how we consume media, it reshapes us in a literal sense as well. Hari explains that our brains are not wired for multitasking. While we may think that we are successfully completing two tasks at once, we are actually forcing our brain to switch from one thing to the other, which slows down the time we have to process what we are doing.
This isn’t just about whether we finish a book or complete an assignment. What’s truly at stake is our ability to think deeply, connect meaningfully, and imagine solutions to the problems we face.
As Hari points out, creativity, conversation, and even democracy depend on sustained attention. If we can’t sit with an idea long enough to understand it, how can we solve big problems? How can we even connect with one another?
XIOMIDIA 