Your Distopian Reality 😧 😢 

“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

— Aldous Huxley

You hate your job; in fact, Monday morning is a dreadful, soul-crushing ritual you perform every week.

You wake up in bed, in a crappy apartment you don't want to live in, scroll on social media liking posts from people you don't care about, do the things that you wish you had the time and resources to do.

Then you go to the bathroom to shower before work, glance in the mirror, and are reminded that you are not healthy, and hate the shape that your body is in.

To make matters worse, you know the life you've always wanted to live; you daydream about it at work.

Landing that six-figure job, starting your own business, finally getting in shape—the only problem is that it feels like there are never enough hours in the day.

Even harder is that when you do have time, your energy and focus disappear from all the other demands life throws at you. It feels like there is a war against you, to stop you from accomplishing your goals.

That's because there is.

We're taught in school how to read, write, and do math, but the one life skill we were never taught was how to focus.

You're probably thinking, "What are you talking about? I'm not a child, no one has to teach you how to focus.”

Let me explain.

The New Currency 🤑 

"If you're not paying for the product, then you are the product"

— The Social Dilemma (Netflix, 2020)

The currency of the modern world is no longer money, and big tech companies know this. They spend billions of dollars to figure out the best way to keep you distracted from building the life you want and instead build bigger profits for them.

In 2021, Facebook (now Meta) whistleblower Frances Haugen sounded the alarm on research that showed Instagram worsened the mental health of teens dealing with anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia.

This wasn't speculation. Internal memos passed around confirmed that, by their own admission, their algorithm, designed to keep users engaged more often and for longer hours, had a deadly cost on some of society's most vulnerable: children and teens.

They didn't care.

Instagram is projected to have made 71 billion in 2024 alone, from ad revenue. The business model is simple: social media companies design their applications to leverage psychological manipulation tactics like FOMO and intermittent reward loops designed to hijack your brain’s attention systems with the same methods casinos use to encourage gambling addiction.

Companies then pay top dollar to advertise their products in ads sent directly to you, the end user. That’s why social media is "free" to use. You don't pay them in cash; you pay with something more valuable to them: your attention.

Social media companies act as attention brokers to sell your focus to the highest bidder, and they purchase information about your online activity habits, shopping habits, and digital footprint to ensure the most enticing products will be placed in front of you at all times.

Have you ever looked up a new keto recipe, or searched for ticket prices to Disneyland, and that week you started getting cooking or Disney ticket price ads? That's by design.

Brave New World 🌎️ 🤳 

“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”

— Blaise Pascal

It's not just the mobile apps; smartphones themselves are designed to form addiction. Research from the University of California by Gloria Mark et al. demonstrated that workers are interrupted on average every 11 minutes by their smartphones/notifications.

After an interruption, it takes time for your mind, on average, another 23 Minutes to re-enter a concentrated "flow state” where you can work productively and with more concentration.

This means that most people's brains are never given the opportunity to think deeply, intentionally, and at maximum capacity. This interruptive cost is known as task switching fatigue.

Our minds work like computers. In the same way that having too many internet tabs or apps running slows your computer, the same is true of our minds. This effect is known as the "Brain Drain Theory.”

Research from the University of Texas at Austin demonstrated that having your phone near you, even if it is off or face down, significantly reduces your ability to focus and problem-solve.

In the study group, people who put their phones in another room performed significantly better on cognitive tests.

So, how can you regain control of your mind, boost mental energy and focus, and reduce brain drain fatigue?

The answer is simple but not easy. It starts by understanding the gravity of the situation: The average person spends about 6 hours and 40 minutes on all devices, including smartphones, computer screens, tablets, etc. Over a life span of 72 years, this amounts to almost 20 years of screen time.

20 years of time spent looking at a screen

20 years not pursuing your dreams.

20 years wasted, so you can line the pockets of shareholders & big tech companies.

If you pull your smartphone out right now, most smartphones allow you to check the screen time you spend on each app.

Now that you understand what's at stake, this is how you fight it.

The Answer You’ve Been Looking For 💡 

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (spoken by the character John “the Savage”)

One simple trick, shown by former Google ethicist Tristin Harris and research from the University of Virginia, is to put your phone in "grayscale mode."

This mode significantly reduces time spent on social media apps, decreases daily screen time, and lowers compulsive phone-checking behavior. It sets a black-and-white filter over your screen, which makes it less appealing to use.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear mentions that one of the core pillars of breaking bad habits is to make bad habits harder to do and good habits easy to do. 

A simple way to implement this is to leave your smartphone in another room while you work or use a physical alarm clock so that your phone is not the first thing you reach for in the morning.

If you need your smartphone for work like I do, you can use distraction blockers like Opal, an app that allows you to set focus sessions and blocks you from opening distracting applications.

I personally use Opal day in combination with my iPhone's work focus mode, which blocks all calls, messages, and notifications while active. It has significantly boosted my focus and productivity and greatly reduced my mental fatigue/stress.

If you found this information helpful, consider sharing this article to help your friends & family reclaim their attention, and subscribe for more focus/productivity life hacks.