The digital age has been upon us for a while now, but what feels different about the present moment is just how quickly the evolution of attention has been driven by one device: the smartphone. These sleek, pocket-sized wonders have completely altered how we interact with the world, and more importantly, how we process information. The question I’ve been grappling with recently—and one that I’m sure you’ve thought about too—is this: How has the smartphone, the ultimate multitasking machine, changed the way we pay attention?
If we’re being honest, smartphones have become an extension of our bodies. They are the first thing we check when we wake up, the last thing we look at before we go to sleep, and the constant companion during our commutes, in line at the grocery store, and everywhere in between. We carry them like an extra limb, and yet, this constant companion doesn’t just reshape how we live—it’s altering the very way our brains work. This isn’t a new revelation, but it’s one that keeps expanding as smartphones grow even smarter and more pervasive.
The Anatomy of Attention: How Smartphones Fragment It
When I first started thinking about attention and smartphones, I kept coming back to this question: what happens when you have a device that pulls you in 100 different directions all at once? The short answer? You become less capable of focusing on one thing for any meaningful amount of time.
We’ve all been there. You open Twitter to catch up on the latest headlines and a few minutes later, you’ve somehow fallen into an endless scroll of memes and pet videos. Suddenly, it’s 30 minutes later, and you can barely remember what you came here for in the first place. This constant switching of tasks, from texts to emails to social media apps to reminders, is more than just a minor inconvenience. It’s a full-blown rewiring of how we engage with information.
Psychologists have long known that the human brain isn’t great at multitasking. Research from the University of California, Irvine, found that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to return to a task after being interrupted. The constant barrage of notifications and messages creates a cycle of rapid attention shifts that rob us of the ability to deeply engage with any one task. We’re not so much multitasking as we are serially task-switching, and every switch means we lose a bit of focus.
The rise of smartphones has turned this idea from an occasional nuisance into a permanent state of being. As I sit here typing this column, I can’t help but notice the constant ping of notifications, the allure of new emails, the siren song of social media. At any given moment, I can be pulled away from this very thought process, and so can you.
The Attention Economy: A Race to the Bottom
If smartphones were simply changing how we allocate our attention, that would be one thing. But we’re talking about a device whose very design is intentionally crafted to hijack our attention. The smartphone is part of a broader “attention economy,” a term that’s been thrown around a lot in recent years to describe the way companies monetize our focus. Every app, every notification, and every scroll is carefully engineered to capture and hold our attention for as long as possible.
And let’s not kid ourselves—these apps aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re businesses, and businesses thrive when they have your attention. More attention equals more data. More data equals better targeting of ads. Better targeting of ads equals more revenue. The cycle is as simple as it is insidious, and it’s working.
Take a look at your phone. How often do you check it? I’d bet it’s more often than you think. According to a study by Asurion, the average American checks their phone nearly 100 times a day. We’ve been trained to reach for our phones in moments of boredom, uncertainty, or even when we’re waiting for something to happen. And with each notification, each alert, the smartphone is conditioned to demand your focus, even if just for a few seconds at a time.
This is where things get really fascinating. We live in a world where attention is the currency of the digital age, and tech companies have become masters at capturing and holding onto that currency. It’s a race to the bottom, where every second of your attention is worth something. These apps are designed to be addictive, to keep you coming back for just one more scroll, one more click, one more video. And as they do, they siphon away bits of your time and mental energy, leaving you less able to focus on anything else.
The Illusion of Control
Here’s something that’s become abundantly clear to me over the years: we think we’re in control of our attention, but in reality, the smartphone has far more control over us than we care to admit.
Sure, we can set Do Not Disturb mode, or hide certain apps from our home screens, or even turn off notifications altogether. But let’s be real—how many of us actually follow through on those good intentions? In the heat of the moment, when a buzz or ding interrupts our thoughts, it’s hard to resist the temptation to see what it is. This constant bombardment of notifications creates a sense of urgency, a feeling that we must respond immediately, even though we know intellectually that it’s not necessary.
One of the most telling moments in my relationship with my smartphone came when I realized how much I depended on it to fill moments of idle time. It’s not that I was specifically seeking distraction—it was just that my phone became the automatic go-to when there was nothing else to do. Whether it was while waiting for a friend at a café or standing in line at the bank, the phone filled every empty second with content. And in doing so, it rewired my brain to never really sit with boredom or space between tasks. The smartphone made it almost impossible to experience anything resembling quiet or solitude.
What Does This Mean for Our Attention?
So, what’s the long-term impact of all of this? We’re still in the early stages of understanding how smartphones are affecting our brains, but the signs are already clear. The ability to focus for long periods of time—what we might call “deep work”—is increasingly under threat. The writer Cal Newport has been vocal about the decline of deep work in the digital age, arguing that the more we allow ourselves to be constantly interrupted by notifications and the urge to check our phones, the less we’re able to engage in meaningful, focused work.
But it’s not just productivity that’s at risk here. Our social lives and relationships are affected, too. How many times have you been out to dinner with friends, only to see everyone hunched over their phones, checking messages or scrolling through Instagram? In those moments, we’re not present with the people around us; we’re too busy responding to the constant pull of our phones.
The issue isn’t necessarily the device itself; it’s the way we’ve integrated it into our lives. Smartphones can be incredibly powerful tools for connection, information, and entertainment. But when those tools start to erode our ability to focus, reflect, and connect in deeper ways, that’s when we have to take a step back and reconsider the role they play in our lives.
A New Relationship with Attention?
If there’s any silver lining to all of this, it’s that we have the power to change our relationship with smartphones—and our attention. It’s about balance. There’s no going back to a time before smartphones, and frankly, we don’t need to. But there’s certainly room to reclaim our focus.
For me, that means creating intentional spaces of time when my phone is put away—whether it’s during a walk, while reading, or even when I’m having a conversation with someone face-to-face. It’s about taking those small but significant steps to rebuild the muscles of deep attention that smartphones have slowly been eroding.
As we move forward, I’d encourage you to do the same. Look at how your smartphone shapes your attention, and think about how you can reshape your relationship with it. Because at the end of the day, our attention is one of the most precious resources we have—and we should be mindful of where we spend it.
4o mini