Reading: Reclaiming our concentration
Our attention is infinitely valuable. A price has increasingly been placed on our attention through clickbait and algorithms designed to catch a moment of our attention and convert it into online engagement. But our attention was valuable before it was monetised.
When something catches our attention, it flickers. Our interest is piqued. It is our sustained attention that deems that thing interesting, important and noteworthy. This sustained attention is called concentration. Concentration and attention are intrinsically related yet, most of what we see on social media demand our attention not our concentration, the greater measure of our time and energy.
Without over-labouring the discourse surrounding the harmful effects of social media, we can quickly see how concentration can become a muscle we do not exercise. Unlike other forms of exercise, this kind isn’t one we gain through new year’s resolutions or sheer pure will. Our eroded concentration levels go beyond our individual habits as suggested by Guardian writer, Johann Hari, who believes that this is structurally embedded into the fabric of our society “from the food we eat to the air we breathe, from the hours we work to the hours we no longer sleep”. The forces behind our eroding concentration levels are much larger than our individual habits but yet, there are still things we can do on the ground, for ourselves, to protect our focus. I would argue that reading is one of them.
You’ve probably heard of the 20-page rule required in order to get into a new book. This is common practice for readers: you give said book, 33.5 minutes (apparently the time it takes for the average reader to read 20 pages) of your concentration and you hope that for your time investment, the book will pick up. Like I say, this is pretty standard practice for readers, yet remarkably counter cultural in our society of eroded concentration. The distinctive thing about this is that, in the 20-page rule, concentration precedes all else. Sure, our initial attention is employed in our selection of the book but our precious concentration is required before we can experience any kind of gratification for our labour. The, sometimes gruelling, discipline of those opening pages builds our ability to sustain our attention without the instant gratification or the flashy tricks of clickbait.
Once we’re in, reading can allow us to enter into a state of flow. Hari describes flow as “the deepest form of attention human beings can offer.” He suggests that flow has somewhat of a meditative quality:
“It’s when you are doing something meaningful to you, and you really get into it, and time falls away, and your ego seems to vanish, and you find yourself focusing deeply and effortlessly.”
How often have we checked our phones and thus, divided our attention, interrupting our own chances of entering into flow? Could this flow perhaps be our greatest hope in holding our attention and regaining some of what we’ve lost?
Reading isn’t the only way we can enter into flow but it’s a very good one. The immersion in story, the stimulation of our intellectual brain, the expanding of our empathetic capacity and the reclaiming of our eroded concentration. It’s not often we find something good for us that also tastes good.
Reference from the Guardian:
