Well, we’ve reached a milestone. New York University asked students whether they would rather break their arm or break their phone. Forty-six percent opted for the arm break, while the rest hesitated for a long time before sacrificing their device. In our defense, a smartphone is ultimately a compact computer that we use for everything. But have you ever counted how many hundreds of times a day you touch it?
The first effect of this attachment is to pulverize our attention span. Always trying to know what’s going on, we break up our activities by flicking our thumbs at the screen. But if our brains were truly messed up, we wouldn’t even be able to drive without an accident every ten meters. Yet we still do. So there is hope.
Attention shapes memory. Among the multitude of situations we face, our well-being depends less on what we are exposed to than on what we focus on.
The prefrontal cortex craves instant gratification, prompting us to react to unnecessary notifications. However, we can help it control itself to reduce its technological appetite. First and foremost, it requires physical exercise and sleep. The latter two immediately improve attention in patients suffering from clinical disorders in this area.
It’s important to understand that avoiding something requires much more concentration than we think. A telephone in the room is therefore the equivalent of a poorly insulated home: a leak of attention. Strengthening our mindfulness by disengaging from a thought to move on to another sensation and sticking to it remains the best training to retrain our brain to stay in place.
And finally, we can choose who we want to be. Are we one of those people who constantly checks their screen, or are we part of the tribe that pays undivided attention to the people in the room? The groups we hang out with influence our behavior. Let’s be selective.
Ultimately, no amount of “thumbs-on-the-screen” bliss will ever make us as happy as the happiness we can find right where we are. Rather than relying on our screens to serve as distracting comfort blankets, let’s cultivate gratitude for what’s already there.