‘What Happens Next?’: Is Our Attention Slipping?

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Dr Susan Carland: Welcome back to What Happens Next?, the podcast that examines some of the biggest challenges facing our world and asks the experts, what will happen if we don't change? And what can we do to create a better future? I'm Dr Susan Carland. Keep listening to find out what happens next.

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Dr Hannah Kirk: We definitely have more distraction in our life and we can feel like our attention is being grabbed.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: In Australia there are probably between 850,000 and a million people with ADHD.

Professor Craig Hassed: So this sort of overload of notifications, not just on the computer but on your smartphone that's sitting on the desk, this is wrenching the attention all over the place.

Timber Hawkeye: It's kind of like, when you're sitting down to watch Netflix or something like that, you're flipping through and you're just – it takes you an hour-and-a-half to decide what to watch because there are so many choices.

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Dr Susan Carland: In a world where we are constantly bombarded with a torrent of endless images, email alerts, text messages and all sorts of distractions, thanks. Mainly to digital devices, one question keeps raising its head Are we losing our focus?

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Dr Susan Carland: Hang on. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, that's right. Focus.

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Dr Susan Carland: In this episode we are focusing on focus. Is our ability to pay attention collapsing? Is there anything we can do to improve our attention span and ability to focus? Why has there been a recent uptick in ADHD diagnoses among adults?

We speak to experts who have dedicated their careers researching focus and attention, whether that be through the study of mindfulness, neurological science or through the contemplated teachings of Buddhism. Our guests in this series will also give us some tips on how we can help improve our focus.

So if you're still with me at this point and haven't been distracted by your phone or laptop, try and pay attention as we take a look at focus on What Happens Next?.

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Dr Susan Carland: Now, where was I?

[Phone ringtone, car horn, dialing, vibrations and computer notification sounds]

Dr Susan Carland: Focusing our mind on the present is a core principle of mindfulness. Our next guest, Professor Craig Hassed, has been studying mindfulness since before it was cool. An expert in this field for many years, I wanted to find out how mindfulness can help us focus.

Professor Craig Hassed: Hi, my name's Craig Hassed and I’m the Director of Education at the Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies, also work in the Faculty of Medicine, and coordinate mindfulness programs around Monash.

Dr Susan Carland: Craig, welcome.

Professor Craig Hassed: Nice to be here.

Dr Susan Carland: When we're not paying attention, when our mind does start to wander, what's actually going on?

Professor Craig Hassed: Well, we go into a mode that's called default mode. There's a default mode network. Perhaps one way you could think of it – these are like the imagination circuits in your brain. But when we're not mindful, we've wandered into that mode without even realising that we've done it.

So your partner's talking and you're kind of looking, but all of a sudden you realise you're not hearing a word of what they're saying because you're rerunning something that happened during the day, or worrying about something tomorrow. So this sort of default mode is kind of like a distracted mode of mind.

When it's really not working for us, the imagination circuits flapping in the wind, as it were, but we're taking imagination to be real. So when we're anxious, for example, about a future event – you've got a presentation to give, you got a meeting, got an interview, you got an exam.

So there we are, we could be sitting in a completely comfortable… We could be lying on our bed and it's three in the morning, and all that's actually happening in that moment is that the body's lying on a really comfortable mattress, a head on a soft pillow, you know, warm doona. There is no stressor, there is no shark in the room, but we're activating a fight-or-flight response based on what the mind's imagining and projecting about the future, or reliving from the past. And that has very unhelpful effects on the body, especially if we're doing it again, and again, and again.

So this default mode is like, often a dream world, and we don't realise it. Now, mind you, these imagination circuits are very useful. Because when you sit down and you want to do something creative, work through a problem, brainstorm something, you use these circuits.

But when we do it in a mindful way, the executive functioning, the decision-making circuits – you've got that top-down awareness so you're able to distinguish between imagination and reality, but you're also able to sift the really useful thoughts from the less useful ones. And that's a really helpful thing to do.

So it's not like this default mode is, is bad and so on, but it's, it's not so useful if it becomes the master rather than the faithful servant, as I sometimes say. And, and that's what's often happening in states like depression, anxiety, etc., that these default circuits are just running by themselves, and a person's got no way of reengaging back with present reality, stepping out of the internal rumination and worry, etc.

Dr Susan Carland: Right. So the helpful daydreaming is when I'm like, “I've got a difficult problem that I need to solve, or a solution, or something creative I need to come up with. I'm going to go for a walk and just let my mind wander, and see what if I can come up with something to, in a way, to solve this, this challenge, this – I need to come up with a solution for something at work.”

And that's sort of a useful, productive way to do it. But when, like you said, intrusively, a fear about the future, or a panic about the past, is sort of overriding, it's not really a problem-solving thing, it's more a… just a rumination.

Professor Craig Hassed: Yeah, rumination and worry are two forms of default mental activity.

Timber Hawkeye: For me, focus is something we need to constantly adjust so that we see the whole picture. Otherwise, regardless of how your focus setting is set, you may be focused on a part of the picture but not the whole thing.

Dr Susan Carland: Timber Hawkeye is an international public speaker and bestselling author of Buddhist Boot Camp. He agrees that if we try to focus on too many things at once, we lose sight of what's important. Sometimes, he says, we can spend too much time focusing on the wrong thing.

Timber Hawkeye: My teacher taught me single-pointed mindfulness. And in an age where we are encouraged to multitask –

[Dialing noises, beeping alarm, crying baby]

Timber Hawkeye: – he encouraged me to single task.

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Timber Hawkeye: And I had to learn how to because that was such a foreign concept, because we, you know… So he would constantly ask me, “What are you focused on? What do you focus on?” Because like, if I'm chopping carrots, like, chop carrots, you know. Don't think about what's the next assignment.

And I'm going to finally answer your question with the story about the kid who wanted to study to be a great karate master. And so he traveled to find the most notorious one in Japan and asked him, “How long will I need to study in order to be the best karate-kai in the land?”.

And the master said, “Ten years.”.

And he said, “Well, what if I study and focus twice as hard as all the other students?”.

And the master said, “Twenty years.”.

And he goes, “Wait a minute, why? Why is it that when I focus, and I work twice as hard, it's going to take me twice as long?".

And he said, "Because when you have one eye on the future, you have one less eye on the present moment.".

So that, to me, in a story form, really explains focus is we lose sight of things if we're scattered and we need to just be present.

Dr Susan Carland: There's a lot of conversation about focus and attention at the moment. Why do you think that is?

Timber Hawkeye: So we were raised, you know, going to school, and we looked at a blackboard and the teachers would write, you know, with chalk and we would take notes, and we learned that way. We learned from reading and writing and having conversation.

And so our ability to absorb information was very different. It was… it was very different soil in which to plant seeds.

And now, not just kids, but all of us are exposed to audio, video, you know, there's a lot of stimulation from YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and all of that. And so we are absorbing a lot more information.

I read somewhere recently that generally the population now reads more than any generation before us. And that, to me, is mindblowing because, you know, I work in the book industry and I'm like, “No, people aren't”.

It's not that we read more books, but we read text messages, we read emails, we read everything online, we're constantly reading. So we're reading more, but the attention span is a lot shorter.

Dr Susan Carland: So does the hectic pace and all the distractions in the modern world make it harder to remain present? Is our ability to pay attention really collapsing? Here's Craig Hassed.

Is focus under assault in our modern age, or actually is our focus as divided as it's ever been?

Professor Craig Hassed: Look, it’d be hard to say because we don't have data from decades ago, let alone hundreds of years ago. The indicators are that attention spans are dropping. Tech companies have been following this sort of stuff for a few decades, and every time they measure it, they notice humanity and spans have been dropping, probably because of the overuse and misuse of technology.

Screen time is not good for children's attention spans. Certain kinds of screen time are particularly unhelpful. The developing child's brain needs interaction with the sensory world. So virtual play, or playing a game like soccer on a screen, uses a minuscule amount of the brain's capacity compared to actually getting out on the grass and kicking a soccer ball around with a dozen other people.

So attention spans, by any measure, certainly it’s indicated by the research, have been dropping over recent years. Microsoft – one report from Canada suggests that the average human attention span’s about eight seconds these days. So this sort of overload of notifications, not just on the computer, but on your smartphone that's sitting on the desk –

Dr Susan Carland: Your watch.

Professor Craig Hassed: – and your smartwatch, this is wrenching the attention all over the place.

Just having a smartphone, even if it's off and face down on the desk, is enough to impair the performance of university students in every way they could measure it. And it doesn't even have to go off. It's just that it's there. The mind keeps going to it. So that's one of the main distractors I think, these days, and the pace of modern life and...

Professor Mark Bellgrove: I think there are more demands on our attention every day.

Dr Susan Carland: Professor Mark Bellgrove is the director of research at the Monash University Turn Institute for Brain and Mental Health, and a professor in cognitive neuroscience in the School of Psychological Sciences. He believes that although we're more distracted than ever before, this doesn't necessarily mean our attention spans are getting shorter in an evolutionary sense.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: And certainly with the emergence of digital technologies, you know, iPhones, iPads, etc., which, you know, weren't there previously, I think folks have more demands on their attention. And attention is ultimately a limited resource, and so you can't… you can only split and divide it so many ways. And I think when there are more demands on one's attention, that can naturally make people feel like their attentional capacity has diminished.

Dr Susan Carland: Everyone's talking about a lack of focus. Do you think things have changed with the way humans are focusing at the moment?

Professor Mark Bellgrove: Look, I doubt it, to be honest. In lots of ways, you know, as I said, attention is a limited capacity resource. There’s only so many things that our brain can process at any one point in time. And I don't see any reason why that has particularly changed more recently. I think what has changed is the demands on our attention.

So if you imagine a child who is on a phone, or on an iPad, and has a parent talking to them, the iPad, or the game, or whatever they're engaged in is highly engaging, highly arousing, stimulating their sensory system, you know, in a big way.

And under those circumstances, it is very hard to disengage from that attention-grabbing, attention-capturing stimulation and direct your attention to something else, whether it be mum saying, “Dinner's ready” or, etc.

So I think all those things, and the demands on our kids, and demands on adults, you know, and you need to see adults focusing on their phone all the time as well, including myself. I think those demands have increased, definitely.

Dr Susan Carland: So the demands have increased, but our focus has not lessened at all. It's just there's more pulls on it.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: Yeah, that, that would be my... I haven't seen any data to demonstrate that our actual attentional capacity, our attentional span has decreased over the, you know, the last 10 years, and I don't see any reason to expect that it would have, you know, particularly not in evolutionary terms. That's not likely to have occurred in such a rapid frame.

So but I think what has happened is the demands on our attention have increased. Our attention is pulled this way or that way all through the day, often all through the night, even if people are leaving their phones next to their beds, for example.

Dr Hannah Kirk: This concept that your attention is our attention has got worse is probably unfounded.

Dr Susan Carland: Dr Hannah Kirk is a developmental psychologist based at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. She agrees that despite us being confronted with more distractions in our life, it doesn't mean our attentional span has decreased.

Dr Hannah Kirk: We definitely have more distraction in our life, and we can feel like our attention is being grabbed and challenged to focus on the thing that you want to focus on. But whether we're actually declining in terms of our attention capacity is unlikely.

In terms of digital tech, I think often it gets lumped together. And like you were saying, sometimes we can use digital tech in a positive way, and sometimes it can be really challenging for our attention and for other things, for our mental health as well.

Dr Susan Carland: Not all blame, Dr Kirk says, should be placed on digital technology. However, it's the way we use digital tech that's the problem.

Dr Hannah Kirk: There's actually a researcher in the UK who's coined this term, a digital diet. And it's about thinking about how we consume digital technology in the same way that we think about the foods that we eat. So most of the research is focused on the amount of time that we spend on digital tech, and unfortunately, that's kind of generalised a lot of the nuances around digital tech.

And in terms of the digital diet, it's about focusing things on the type of technology that you're using in the same way as the type of food that we eat. Some foods are more beneficial for us, some foods are not so beneficial for us, and we're mindful of that in how we approach our, you know, food diet. So we kind of need to be mindful of that in terms of our digital diet.

And it's also really important to think about context as well. So in the same way as our diet, you know… If we're eating like four real high-energy, high-fat nutrition bars at home because we're bored, that's very different than if you're eating them because you're completing a marathon. And the same with digital technology. So why are you using that type of digital technology?

Is it to help you perform better, or is it for a different reason? And that's – it definitely makes the questions that we have to answer as researchers harder, but it's really important to think about those different nuances in terms of digital tech, and the impact that it has on our attention.

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Newsreader 1: The number of prescriptions for ADHD drugs has almost doubled in eight years, from around 529,000 per year in 2013 to 900…

Newsreader 2: Some experts believe that by the age of ten, kids with ADHD will have absorbed around 20,000 more negative messages about themselves…

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Dr Susan Carland: One condition that has been in the media a great deal lately is Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. Professor Mark Bellgrove has been studying the disorder for over 20 years.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: So ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition, which means it starts early in life, and it's defined, actually, by three symptom domains. One is inattention, so problems maintaining focus, problems sustaining attention, increased distractibility. The other two domains are hyperactivity, so constantly on the go, as if driven by a motor, and impulsivity, so having trouble controlling one's actions, one's behavior, even one's thoughts.

And the essential feature of ADHD, like all diagnoses that we have in the mental realm, is that the condition has to be impairing. So it's not just one is a little inattentive or a little bit distractible. These are impairments that actually have a negative consequence on the individual, whether it be a child or an adult, and in multiple domains, so not just at home. It has to be at school, at home, and perhaps in other social settings as well. So it's a fairly profound impairment that has a functional effect on the person's life.

Dr Susan Carland: Mm. How common is ADHD in the population?

Professor Mark Bellgrove: Look, it's very common. It's probably the most prevalent childhood condition, neurodevelopmental condition. We think in Australia there are probably between 850,000 and a million people with ADHD.

Dr Susan Carland: Oh wow. OK.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: The prevalence is higher in kids than in adults. In adults, we think it's probably around one-and-a-half to 2 per cent of people have ADHD, and roughly equal numbers of men and women in adulthood, whereas in childhood, the balance is towards more boys having a diagnosis of ADHD. And so it's a very common condition.

Dr Susan Carland: Right. And if you say that it's more common in children than adults, does that mean people can grow out of it?

Professor Mark Bellgrove: Yeah. So, look, there's… Certainly there are people with ADHD whose symptoms will remit, so they might no longer meet diagnostic threshold in adulthood. But for a lot of people, their symptoms will be lifelong, and the condition will be lifelong.

We probably think maybe about 60 per cent of folks will carry their symptoms into adulthood. Sometimes the presentation will change as folks age, so they become less hyperactive, less impulsive, and perhaps more the inattentive symptoms will predominate. They'll have problems with organisation, problems with planning, sort of, you know, problems with juggling the day to day, challenges of life, etc..

Dr Susan Carland: Let's hear from Dr Hannah Kirk.

Dr Hannah Kirk: So I think definitely there's been an increase in referrals, particularly for adult ADHD. Whether or not that kind of ticks over into increased diagnosis is yet to be seen, but I think that's mainly due to increased awareness, awareness of ADHD.

And I think also the pandemic has had a big role to play in that as well. Often ADHD gets picked up when children start school, so it's a time when the demands that are placed on them can be greater. And I think for adults, the pandemic often meant that people were working from home. they didn't potentially have the structure that they would typically have of a work day, and they had competing demands as well, maybe, you know, childcare, as well as trying to complete their tasks and managing the home.

So I think there's a lot of factors that might have increased their capacity to be able to do things and those symptoms might have then become more present for them.

Dr Susan Carland: Here’s Professor Mark Bellgrove again.

Professor Mark Bellgrove: So we know that ADHD is genetic, that it runs in families, that it is what's known as heritable. And we know that it is from a whole heap of studies around the world, including Australia, some early work done in Australia showed that ADHD was a highly heritable trait.

And I think it's really, really important for the community to know this because we have a lot of, often, negativity about ADHD. People often will say it's a made-up condition, didn't exist years ago, etc., etc. But the heritability estimates for ADHD are really on a par with other major mental conditions, like, whether it be schizophrenia or autism. So I think it's really important that we acknowledge that it is a biologically-driven genetic condition.

Dr Susan Carland: Even from those who don't suffer from ADHD, there seems to be an acknowledgment from our experts that our attention is being challenged by increasing distractions in our daily life. So what's at stake for us as individuals if we can't find the ability to focus? Here’s a final word from the mindfulness expert Professor Craig Hassed.

Professor Craig Hassed: We need mental downtime to reduce the cognitive or mental load. Because if we're never doing that, it's like, you know, you go in and you write on a whiteboard in a classroom, and the next person comes in and writes on the whiteboard, and then the next person. All of a sudden the whiteboard is a total mess of stuff everywhere.

And we never think, “Well, wait a sec, time to just get one of those whiteboard dusters and actually just clean the whiteboard”. So clear it again so that it's ready to take new impressions.

So we're never reducing that mental load. Then the brain becomes very overloaded, but it impairs our ability to function well, impairs decision making, it impairs creativity. It's not helpful.

And so one of the interesting areas of research is to show that actually when we reduce mental load, we improve decision-making. When we reduce mental load, we improve creativity. That's why a lot of places that really value innovation and creativity actually have meditation spaces, actually encourage employees to have some downtime because they know that people are more creative when they do that.

Dr Susan Carland: It's true. We need to find downtime to reduce our mental load and improve our concentration, decision-making and creativity.

In our next episode, I speak to our experts about some of the ways we can help improve our focus and attention. We’ll also discuss some of the research into better ways to treat ADHD, and, somewhat ironically, it could be through digital technology.

So thanks for paying attention! Join us for part two on focus next time on What Happens Next?.