Our concentration ability is really decreasing in the digital era? A critical analysis of the relationship between artificial intelligence, algorithms, and human attention.
It's morning. Scroll down the notifications, respond to a voice mail message, open the browser to check the news and in the meantime, while an app suggests, the playlist is ideal for focusing, another warns us that our time-of-use is already above average. The mind jumps from one information to another, without ever alighting really.
In this scenario increasingly common, the artificial intelligence plays a crucial role, often invisible, yet profound. Our relationship with the attention has changed. And maybe we've reached the point where we have to ask ourselves: we are still able to protect her?
The attention economy: when the focus turns to the goods
The concept of care has transformed in the digital age. A time resource, inner to grow, and today is the object of contention between platforms, algorithms, personalized advertisements. The focus is no longer just our own, but is measured, analyzed, manipulated by intelligent systems trained to keep connected as long as possible.
It is not a coincidence that many of the ex-leaders of the big tech speak openly “attention economy” as a real form of extraction cognitive, similar to that of natural resources. The social content (and algorithms) capture our time, which has become a valuable commodity, as explained by the sociologist Nicoletta Vittadini.
Artificial intelligence, with its ability to anticipate behaviors, build profiles, predictive and customize the content in real time, helps to create digital environments-to-measure. Apparently reassuring, but in reality designed to reduce the space of conscious choice. Our time mental becomes fragmented, the focus thins, depth, leave space to the speed. We are connected to everything, but disconnected from ourselves.
Science confirms: the attention is under siege
Psychological research confirms these changes. A study conducted by the University of Texas has shown how the mere presence of your smartphone, even turned off, to reduce significantly the capacity of attention during a cognitive task. The research involved 548 volunteers and demonstrated that intellectual abilities are limited to 20% when the phone is present, regardless of whether it is on or off.
Other studies, like those conducted at Stanford University by the team of professor Clifford Nass, show that the continuous exposure to stimuli digital predictive reduces the threshold of boredom, creating a constant need for new and interaction. The research revealed surprising given: the multitasker serial (heavy media multitaskers are “suckers for irrelevancy” – the victims of irrelevance, unable to filter out the unnecessary information.
More than 11 years of research have shown that people who frequently use many types of media at the same time performance is significantly worse than in simple memory tasks, confirmation Anthony Wagner, director of the Stanford Memory Laboratory.
The artificial intelligence becomes an amplifier of our cognitive vulnerabilities, exploiting the neural mechanisms that have evolved in contexts that are completely different from that in the current digital.
The algorithms that shape our attention
The algorithms of social media are not limited to present content: make sure that users will be viewing mainly of the content that confirm their views and adhere to their vision of the world, as was shown in a study published in PNAS.
This dynamic, known as the “echo chamber”, has profound effects on our ability deficit. The bias of the social and the cognitive end for us to pay more attention to the information that they become “viral”, even if these contents are certainly not indices of reliability and quality of the information.
The result is a vicious circle in which the algorithms prefer content that are of quality, namely, those contents that match the numbers: more views, more comments, more likes, more interactions. Our attention was captured not by the intrinsic quality of the information, but by its ability to generate engagement.
The myth of multitasking and the reality of the neurobiological
Contrary to popular belief, the human brain is not designed for multitasking. We don't do multitasking. Change activity. The word “multitasking” implies that you can do two or more things at the same time, but in reality our brains allow us to do only one thing at a time and we need to move from one to the other, explains Anthony Wagner Stanford.
Research shows that excessive use of media multitasking causes a noticeable drop in the quality of the performance by the time that the subjects “heavy” are the results be more susceptible to distraction, with difficulty in discriminating stimuli that are relevant from those that are irrelevant.
This has profound implications for the learning and productivity. The phenomenon of media multitasking in the classroom has been shown to have negative consequences in the presence of laptops can cause a decrement in learning not only to direct the user, but also to your classmates that are neighbors in space.
Artificial intelligence: enemy or ally?
But it would be unfair to stop a sentence in general. The AI is not the enemy. It is a mirror. Reflects and multiplies what already exists within us. It is possible to imagine a different relationship, more aware, in which the technology does not take warning, but to help us to recover it?
In the end, there are already applications that go in this direction: instruments of guided meditation, artificial intelligences that govern the time of exposure to screens, interfaces that reduce the sensory overload. The AI can become an ally of the mental well-being, if we plan with this in mind.
As we have seen in our article about as ChatGPT is changing the way we communicatethe speed and efficiency they bring with them the risk of superficiality. The same applies to the warning: delegate it to the algorithm means the acceptance of a form of delegation of consciousness.
Attention as a political act
Then there is another level, the more subtle, which concerns the way in which the artificial intelligence reinterprets reality for us. The flow of information that we consume is filtered, selected and tailor-made algorithms that learn from our clicks, our hesitations, even by eye movements. This affects what we see, but also what we do not see. And in a certain sense, what we see is what we are less able to choose from.
In this context, our attention is not only a cognitive function, but a political act. Choose where to look, how much time to dedicate to a content, decide to read to the bottom or stop the scroll, continuous gestures are self-determination. Resist the fragmentation becomes a way to regain possession of the mind.
The attention, as he writes the philosopher James Williams – a former designer of Google, and then became one of the thinkers more transparency on the issue – it is the most valuable asset we have in a world and an overload of stimuli. In his book, “Stand Out of Our Light” explains how the design of digital environments should be oriented not to capture the attention, but to protect it.
Williams suggests that we should be able to do what we want to do (the light of the reflector), to be who we want to be in (the light of the stars), and want what we want (the light of the day). Three light sources corresponding to three levels of depth cognitive.
A revolutionary principle, yet so simple. The question is not only “can we do with AI?”, but “we can do less, better?”.
Strategies to regain the focus
The cognitive psychologist Stefan Van der Stigchel suggests some ways to improve your concentration: the importance of training to focus with appropriate pauses to consolidate what you have learnt and recharge the batteries; the meditation, which proves to be an effective training to enhance the ability to focus; disconnecting at certain times of the day, to avoid stresses continue.
We can choose to slow down. We can build moments of silence, digital, where the mind is besieged by stimuli, but may simply exist. Even in this, the AI can help us, if we learn to ask the right things, to build digital spaces that are not based on hyper engagement, but on the quality of the experience.
A challenge collective
Take back the focus is not only an individual task. It is a challenge collective. Refers to the way in which we build our technology, but also the culture that accompanies them. We can rethink our habits, redesign priorities.
This is not to abandon, but to live with more awareness of the world that it contributes to the shaping. As we explored analyzing the effect of AI on our psychologythe technology can become a tool of understanding and personal growth, rather than distraction and fragmentation.
In the constant noise of the digital age, the focus is strength. Is presence. It is, perhaps, the first step is to go back really to ourselves.