The Lie of Multitasking and the Flow State Solution

It almost seems as if it has become completely impossible for us as humans to focus on one single thing at a time. As our world has become increasingly connected, we have access to information from every corner of the globe as soon as it is uploaded to the internet. This overload of information and ease of access has made it almost impossible for us to focus on one thing at a time, and we are instead pulled in a different direction every few seconds to minutes. While this connection is arguably a good thing, it has its downfalls, and these downfalls could have drastic implications. As Johann Hari (2022) points out in his book Stolen Focus, we as humans believe we can do the same as computers and multitask, but this is impossible.  

What we perceive as multitasking is actually our brains jumping from one thing to another as Hari (2022) explains “What the scientists discovered is that, in fact, when people think they’re doing several things at once, they’re actually – as Earl explained – ‘juggling.” (p. 61) Now let‘s be honest, it would be amazing if we could all multitask, but it just isn’t possible. This leads to, in my opinion, a big problem where, in a world that offers a million and one choices, a person has to choose just one thing and focus on it. Now, this is arguably more of an inconvenience than it is a real problem at the moment, but we are already starting to see that it could be a real problem in the future. One stark fact that could be a direct result of so much information and media being one click away is the drastic drop in literacy rates that we are currently seeing.  

It is hard to say where we go from here, given the overload of information that we all receive at almost every moment of the day. It is something that we can’t change and instead have to learn to adapt to and live in harmony with. Hari (2022) addresses this harmonization by exploring the idea of flow states put forth by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in which an individual commits themselves to a task and pushes themselves to their limits, creating an almost unbreakable focus. If we as humans can find a way to motivate ourselves and others to adopt the idea of flow states and our ability to focus on one thing at a time without getting distracted by the constant stream of information and media, we may be able to avoid any further damage caused by our seeming addiction to media and information.  

Reference 

Hari, J. (2022). Stolen focus. Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.