Digital habits that rob attention and energy — and how to combat them
Takeaways:
Zomorodi begins with the surprising physiology of multitasking. Every time you switch tasks, your brain burns glucose and the oxygen needed to process it, leaving behind CO2 that builds up as you overload yourself. This is the source of the tired, foggy, mentally fatigued feeling that sets in after a stretch of jumping between screens.
The first fix Zomorodi proposes is simple: a single-task. Do one thing all the way through, take a break, then move to the next. And when you need to regain focus, the break shouldn’t happen on your phone. Instead, get up and walk around. Moving stimulates your muscles, which pump oxygen and glucose-rich blood back up to your brain.
The deeper, more widespread problem multi-screen time induces is “infomania,” a compulsion to keep taking in more information even though we aren’t retaining or processing most of it.
There is actually research that shows that humans who have spent one full hour bouncing between apps and inboxes tend to keep interrupting themselves even once things calm down.
Over time, our brains become accustomed reaching for distraction, even when nobody and nothing is actually pulling at your attention.
Zomorodi’s antidote is to have a plan ready in advance. Decide ahead of time how you’ll respond when you catch yourself reaching for the phone, so your brain grabs the plan instead of the device. Zomorodi keeps her calendar deliberately full. Not to stay busy, but so she doesn’t have to make in-the-moment decisions all day.
The advice Zomorodi offers: think of yourself as an “information athlete.” Know what you want from your phone before you pick it up, and once you’ve got it, stop. Constant context switching from device to device or app to app burns through your cognitive resources quickly. Training like an athlete to avoid that means allocating your attention with purpose.
In the end, Zomorodi’s message isn’t to abandon our devices but to approach them with intention. Focus, like any resource, goes furthest when we use it wisely and allocate it to things that matter.
By Marielle Segarra & Manoush Zomorodi for NPR’s Life Kit
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