In a minute, millions of videos are uploaded, articles are published, messages are exchanged, and notifications fight for the attention of human beings. We are in a “Post Information Age. We can learn thousands of years of knowledge, be instantly exposed to information around the world, and enjoy endless amusement with a few clicks. However, with this growth in access, there’s a stealthy intellectual query beginning to develop as to why it’s becoming more unusual to continue thinking when information is now more abundant than ever. People aren’t less smart, it’s that they’re more intelligent. That’s why attention is in constant strain — a key element in deep thinking.
The changes that digital technology has made in human life are things that one could not have imagined 40 years ago. It has democratized education, provided global instantaneous connection with one another, and made new ways to knowledge that only used to be available through institutions and elites. They can now watch lectures from top universities, study medicine, get to know how to code, or learn philosophy, all from the comfort of home, for a student in a remote village. This constitutes one of the greatest educational revolutions in all history. However, there is a paradox here in the revolution: the very systems that could be used to gain access to knowledge are designed to disperse people’s attention.
The distinction matters. There is plenty of information, and it’s real-time. Clues are hard to process and take in. It involves a long (long) process of engagement, tolerance of complexity, and the willingness to be at the same time with the difficulties. Deep thinking isn’t just the act of taking in facts, but it’s the linking of ideas, challenging of assumptions, and drawing of logical conclusions. That takes us back to one of the things that the internet doesn’t really provide: uninterrupted time.
In the years studied under cognitive science, it has been proven that the human mind is highly susceptible and has limited focus capacity. The interruptions are notifications, preview messages, switching between apps, and every other kind of interruption — each comes with what the researchers describe as a switching cost. In those cases when people start many tasks and switch their attention to and from them, they lose the ability to focus on complex tasks.
Research on Media Psychology indicates that high-load media multitasking is associated with shallow processing of information, especially in younger people who live in hyper-connected environments. It isn’t about a lack of concentration; it’s about a lack of attention, and it happens in a faultless human way as well as a natural way. It is a change in the distribution of attention that is put in place. There are lots of sources online that have optimized them to not just be understood but also engaged in. Algorithms develop what’s most interesting and surface content tuned to users’ perpetual need to scroll, rather than “digging into it” (novelty, emotionality, fast pace, rather than depth or continuity).
This type of setting makes the reader much more likely to be a “scanner” than a prolonged reader. The result is a change in reading habits, of which one is visible. The researchers in education have noted a decrease in the reading habit, especially among the younger generation. Deep reading involves cognitively taxing activity—for example, it involves working memory and inferences as well as sustained focus. Short form content disrupts and replaces the long form content, making fewer learning opportunities for an extended attention span. This, over time, impacts understanding and analytical skills – but ongoing research is underway to identify the extent of impact. Attention is neuroplastic — it changes and adapts to the context or setting in which it is occurring, according to neuroscience.
Fragmentation becomes a natural occurrence when reading for a long period of time. This doesn’t mean that the situation is irrevocable. It does, however, establish that the kind of “habits of attention” that are formed, whether intended or not, are influenced by one’s environment. It is not a technology problem; it’s an actual problem. It is the same platforms that break focus that are what make for extraordinary intellectual life: lengthy education content, open access research, global academic collaboration, communities of serious discussion, all of them and more, were all unimaginable. Now, millions of people without access to the structured learning system are able to learn on their own.
The issue is that the attention economy is around technology. Platforms are encouraged to get human focus by any means they can in a world where it’s a product for sale. Content that attracts the most attention seems to be more successful in driving results than more intellectual content. The speed is more important than depth. Immediacy displaces reflection. When people are very busy, they tend to disregard learning. And the effects are not just on the cognitive level: societies rely on profound thinking to carry out democratic debate, develop the sciences, and for effective public debate. It’s impossible to find a way through climate change, artificial intelligence governance, economic inequality, and more with fractured attention.
They need continuous involvement in data, argument, and differing points of view. But it’s not too late. Cognitive attention is malleable; it can be changed. It is the time to reinstate sustained reading, long-form writing, and analytical discussions as fundamental skills and provide students with a choice of what to think about as well as how to think for longer periods. Design decisions by technology companies can minimize the extra interruptions and regain the user’s agency over their own focus. Some now try to adopt better patterns of use – albeit on a small scale–rather than default engagement-driven options. But at the level of the individual, it takes conscious choice to regain the deep thinking habit: setting aside time to think, limiting multitasking, creating more time for long-form thinking, and embracing the boredom necessary for reflection.
Constant stimulation doesn’t lead to deep thinking! It comes forth from quietude. There have been no changes to human intelligence. It’s being practiced differently — not as a long sequence, over a variety of surfaces, but in shorter sequences. It’s not knowledge; it’s the lack of knowledge that causes the real problem in our digital times. It’s the translation from tranquility where knowledge is converted to understanding.
Deep thinking is not being killed! We’re in a challenge to preserve it in a fast-paced environment. The result will be to change our thinking and our living.