Preserving Our Attention

Joining together to create a self-defense strategy for the mind.

Elio stares out at the Atlantic Ocean, August 2025.

More than a year ago, I wrote about my longing to disconnect from the buzz of daily life in a world dominated by the internet. I lament to admit that, despite my earnest efforts to restrict my personal use of the World Wide Web, I’m not any more removed from the clutches of Mark Zuckerberg and Co. than I was in May 2024.

I am both victim and perpetrator in the plot to diminish my attention span.

I love reading articles like “You’re Being Rude. Put Away Your Phone,” by writer Robinson Meyer in The Argument. I love telling people that I’m no longer on Instagram, and that I only go on Facebook to sell things and stalk people. I don’t just put my phone on “Do Not Disturb,” what my friend Apocalyptic Cowboy would call virtue signaling, like the libs who post from the toilet every time a disenfranchised group is targeted by the police. I turn the damned thing off at night or flip on the ringer on and leave it in another room, pretending it’s a landline and not a tool meant for distraction. Heck, Haley and I have even discussed getting a landline again,¹ so the kids can talk to their friends without the ghost of Steve Jobs luring them into Gomorrah. (For more on this subject, read “America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is,” by Ian Bogost in The Atlantic.)

But the truth is, I still get pulled in by the riptides of our attention economy.²

The demands of working on computers in 2025 are partly to blame. You cannot be a white-collar worker in America and not expect to interact with at least Slack, Teams, or Outlook a dozen times a day. Project management software dings you; notifications are as bountiful as candy corn on Halloween. And I wonder: how many of us are getting paid more to answer emails and keep folks “in the loop” than contribute our talents meaningfully to our employers? What upper management calls integration, I call suffocation.

Even on my own time, I can’t watch a movie or read a book without being drawn to Wikipedia or watching breakdown essays on YouTube. If I go fishing, I stuff my iPhone in my pocket for both its GPS features—so Haley can locate me if I break my ankle hopping boulders in the backcountry—but also because if I catch a particularly pretty brook trout I will feel compelled to take a picture and text it to my friends when I get back in service. When I smoke my new Savinelli Esploratore Boscaiolo pipe on the porch at night, I don’t stare up at the twinkling stars, grateful to live in a place where light pollution does not wash out the wonder of the cosmos; I scroll on eBay looking for deals on other stuff I’d like to buy.

Neurologists have told us for years that multitasking drains our brains. But, come on, we’re Americans. We don’t listen to nerds! Instead, we brag about how good we’ve gotten at juggling phone calls with Grandma and emails to clients with packing our kids’ lunches, listening to audiobooks, and paying our bills through online banking apps. We’re lying to ourselves, producing Dollar Tree-quality work, unable to focus on a single task for longer than five minutes without feeling the urge to do something else.