I used to be able to disappear into a book. On Sunday mornings, I’d make coffee, curl up on the couch, and hours would pass without me noticing. One paragraph would lead to another, and soon I’d be hundreds of pages in, living inside someone else’s mind.
It was effortless. But something has changed.
Now, even books struggle to hold my attention. Five minutes in, my brain whispers: check your phone. Maybe there’s a notification. An AI update. A tweet about something urgent.
I fight it, sometimes. I put the phone in another room. But my mind still drifts, restless, like it’s been rewired for constant stimulation. My attention feels like a shattered pane of glass, light scattering everywhere.
The Slow Death of Focus
At first, I blamed myself. Maybe I was lazy, or getting older. Then I noticed it in everyone around me:
- Friends who hadn’t read a novel in years.
- Colleagues juggling five tabs, three chat windows, and two half-finished projects.
- Family dinners where half the table was staring at glowing screens.
We aren’t broken. We’re being rewired. The pings, the feeds, the endless scroll — they train our brains to crave constant stimulation. Books, deep conversations, even boredom itself — none of these stand a chance against the dopamine casino of the modern internet.
The Attention Crisis of 2025
We’re living in the age of AI-generated feeds, hyper-personalized notifications, and endless streams of content designed to hijack our focus.
Friends haven’t finished a novel in years. Colleagues juggle half-finished projects while prompting AI to “write a report.” Family dinners often include a chorus of notifications, lights flickering on faces.
We aren’t broken. We’ve been rewired. The pings, the personalized algorithms, the immersive AI chatbots — they train our brains to crave instant gratification. Books, long conversations, reflection — they simply can’t compete.
The Cost No One Talks About
It’s easy to shrug this off. So what if we check our phones a little too much?
But the real cost isn’t time lost — it’s depth lost.
When we can’t focus, we can’t think deeply. When we can’t think deeply, we can’t create, or connect, or understand. We start living life in headlines, in fragments, always skimming the surface. And slowly, without realizing it, we forget what it feels like to be immersed.
My 2025 Experiment
Last year, I did something radical: No phone in the bedroom.
This single habit began to restore a bit of depth — space for reading, for thought, for silence. It’s not easy, but it’s a start....
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