[Hyung-ju Heo's Column] Social Media Eroding Humanity's Focus

The phenomenon of depleted concentration is a social epidemic
The paradox of banning surveillance capitalism on social media

Recently, I had something embarrassing to confess. I went through a period where I couldn't focus on my work at all. I felt addicted to Instagram, so I limited my screen time to 10 minutes a day, but then suddenly a game ad popped up, and I ended up installing a mobile game. I spent a week immersed in the game, even recharging with cash.

When my game money ran out and I could no longer continue playing, I finally came to my senses and deleted the game. It was something I never thought would happen to me, a self-proclaimed 'self-development expert'.

My concentration was hijacked. I felt a sense of awe for the 'designers.' I was amazed by their ability to create such a robust design that makes it so difficult to escape once you're hooked. And then, a wave of self-loathing washed over me. “I lost, and you won.”

After spending a week trapped in a game while trying to escape social media, I wondered how many people could actually break free from such a sophisticated design. And then I started reading Johann Hari's book, *Stolen Focus*, which pinpoints the cause of our declining concentration not as a lack of self-control in individuals but as a societal system.

Most people, like myself, believe that our inability to concentrate and our tendency to become easily distracted are a result of 'personal failures' due to a lack of willpower. However, in this book, Johann Hari holds the 'designers' accountable for our concentration problems.

The ability to focus is collapsing everywhere in the world. American teenagers can't focus on one thing for more than 65 seconds, and the average concentration span of working adults is a mere 3 minutes. The author claims that the severe phenomenon of concentration depletion in modern society is a social epidemic, like 'obesity'.

Obesity was extremely rare 50 years ago, but today it's an epidemic in the Western world. It's not because we suddenly became more gluttonous. Changes in our environment have led to changes in our bodies, such as the decline in the quality of food we eat, changes in the food supply chain, and the construction of cities that make it difficult to walk or cycle. The author argues that a similar change is happening with concentration. We live in a society that is 'designed' to make us lose our focus.

First, let's look at social media. Their fuel is our 'concentration.' The more time people spend glued to their phones, the more ads they see, and the more money social media companies make. Therefore, social media is 'designed' to constantly reinforce algorithms and exploit our vulnerabilities to keep us scrolling.

Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer who actively speaks out against the harms of this design, confessed that there is a team of Google engineers who control the thoughts and emotions of a billion people. He also tried to convince his colleagues at Google that their actions in creating systems that destroy concentration are unethical.

The author argues that the 'surveillance capitalism' of social media companies should be banned and that we need to stop them from continuing in this direction. In addition to social media, another factor that hinders our ability to concentrate is cheap, poor-quality diets. Global experts say that we're overlooking the fact that changes in food are taking away a large portion of our ability to concentrate.

Most of the food we eat today is 'ultra-processed food.' Ultra-processed food is like “putting rocket fuel in a Mini Cooper,” causing energy crashes that lead to a loss of concentration. The author says that while we each need to make some personal changes, we also need to confront the larger forces behind this.

Unless we own mountains and farms and grow our own food, we have no choice but to buy our food from supermarkets, which are filled with cheap processed foods, and these foods are advertised to us from the moment we're born with massive budgets. It's a reality that's hard to escape. In addition to this, the author discusses various other issues that hinder our ability to concentrate, emphasizing that this is a social epidemic and calls for a fundamental change in the system.

As I read the book, I felt a strange sense of relief. I had felt a great deal of shame about my concentration problems and had been whipping myself into shape, but knowing that this wasn't just my problem brought a sense of comfort.

The author also confesses that he changed his approach to responding to distractions while writing the book. Originally, he would self-reproach and shame himself into focusing. Now, he asks himself how he can get into a state of flow and deep concentration, what meaningful activities he can do right now, and what his limits are. He found that pursuing a state of flow was far more effective than self-punishing shame.

The number of people searching for 'how to make your brain focus' has increased by 300%. People all over social media are saying that their minds are not working. Yet, the world mainly sends a message of self-flagellation. That's not going to be a fundamental solution.

The problem of concentration can lead to major social issues beyond individual problems. If we can't read long texts and can't focus, it becomes difficult to maintain a healthy democracy. Democracy is possible when people can have healthy exchanges of opinions, but if we can't concentrate, no one understands what anyone is saying, how society is functioning, or what's going on in the world. This can lead to the rise of populism and the potential collapse of the foundations of society as a whole. Therefore, we cannot simply shift the blame onto individuals. It's time for systemic solutions to be put in place.

On the 1st, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on online child sexual exploitation and called social media CEOs, including Zuckerberg, to testify. The hearing included strong criticism, such as, “You’re creating products that are killing people,” and the argument that Big Tech should bear more legal responsibility for these issues. In a reality where they can't even protect children from pornography, it's a long way off before we can even discuss 'concentration.'

These days, I've started trying my best as an individual to put my phone away. I'm also planning to buy a phone lock soon. In the reading group I run, we're going to have an in-depth discussion on this topic and try to figure out what we need to do to protect future generations.

We are living in an era of a major concentration crisis. Let's remember that reclaiming our stolen focus and our lost concentration is essential for maintaining a healthy society.

※ The author of this article is the original author, andthis is a re-post from Woman Economy Newspaper.