<h2 class=" eplus-wrapper" id="crosshead">Not in focus</h2>

In the 11th Century, a movement called SufismA mystical Islamic belief and practice. developed in Islam. Its practitioners listen to music and hymns until they enter a trance-like state in which they believe they can communicate directly with God.

Today, the concentration needed for such a feat seems impossible to many. It is common to hear people complain that they no longer have any attention span.

This might seem like an unimportant issue compared with the other challenges posed to us by the modern world: the climate crisis, war in Ukraine.

But experts say it prevents us from concentrating on these same problems. A crisis occurs, we talk about it for a few days, and then we forget about it. We do not have the concentration to come up with solutions.

We can even measure the loss of our ability to focus on important issues. In 2013, a global trend on Twitter would last 17.5 hours on average. By 2016, this had dropped to just 11.9 hours.¹

And it can be fatal for our work. It is estimated that every time we get distracted, it takes us 25 minutes to return to our task.²

Scientists say the culprit is information overload. Every day we are bombarded with information from hundreds of sources: phones, laptops, TVs - and most of all, social media.

This is not a bug of social media: it is a feature. Social media companies want to keep us on their sites.

That is why the classic elements of social media sites are designed to be addictive, like pulling down at the top of the screen to refresh the feed. It takes advantage of the fact that our brains like unpredictability.³

Experts warn that among the addictive social media apps, TikTok is king. Its aim is to keep you on the platform for as long as it can manage. And when we spend our lives consuming 30-second videos, we can lose our ability to focus.

Yes: Research suggests that we now spend our days in a state of constant distraction. We cannot apply ourselves to anything and this makes us bored, frustrated and overstimulated.

No: People still love films, they binge TV series, and novels are as popular as ever. We can still focus properly as long as we give ourselves breaks from social media.

Or... If our attention spans are shorter, social media is not solely to blame. People are more likely to look for distractions if they are already unhappy or depressed. Social media is a symptom, not a cause, of the mental health crisis.

Sufism - A mystical Islamic belief and practice.