As a society, we have lost our ability to concentrate. While our technology has advanced, our focus has declined. We’re even struggling to pay attention to certain forms of technology now. I’ve heard many people throughout my life say they can’t even watch movies anymore because they can’t stay focused for a two-hour program. These people prefer watching TV because it’s shorter. Most recently, thanks to platforms like TikTok, I’ve heard some people say even a thirty-minute TV show feels like a battle with their concentration now. If we can’t stay focused on our technology, imagine how much our reading is suffering. 

Reading Without Distractions

In Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, he describes an interaction with a young woman working at a bookstore. Each day he sees her with a different book, and when he comments on her fast reading, she tells him that she isn’t reading the books in full. She blames her lack of focus. This jumped out at me because I’ve been in that position of starting books and never finishing them. In recent years this has changed for me and I’m quite the bookworm now. After the pandemic, I fell back in love with reading, a hobby I once had when I was younger. Thanks to my time spent on Long Island in the summers, I began reading constantly at the beach. Hari describes in Stolen Focus how he not only read more while in Provincetown but he was deeply immersed. Hari said, “I got lost in them for really long stretches, sometimes whole days–and I felt like I was understanding and remembering more of what I read.” Reading Hari’s experience made me realize I had the same one and didn’t even know it. I’m not saying everyone needs to go to a quiet beach to get back into reading, but there’s something to be said about being in a truly distraction-free environment. The beach is the one place that I can’t use my phone–it overheats in the sun, it’s hard to see the screen, and there’s bad service by the water. Without the distraction of my phone, when I bring a book to the beach, it’s the best reading experience. Unfortunately, our society is set up to be full of distractions and because of it, we’re collectively losing focus. But, if you can find someplace, a beach or somewhere else, where you can truly disconnect, it’s a blessing.