It’s no longer a secret: human attention spans are shrinking. From younger to older generations, technology and the fast-paced consumption of information are reshaping our brains. Is it for better or worse? Only time will tell. For now, I find myself worried about these statistics, especially when I recognize my own habits contributing to this trend. No, this isn’t paranoia—we see it in our daily lives. Standing in line has never been a favorite activity, but nowadays, finding thousands of distractions in those moments is a troubling sign for our brains.

For thousands of years, monks have practiced deep meditation to concentrate on one thing, intentionally pushing away all unwanted thoughts and distractions. Modern people seem to do the opposite—we attract more and more unnecessary information, visuals, and graphics into our brains, ultimately losing our sense of priority. What is a priority anymore? Is it family, mindfulness, studies, work? Voltaire would advise us to “take care of our own garden,” but today, we’re busy minding everyone else’s gardens on social media.

The scary part is not even the time we waste—we are becoming utterly unaware. The most frightening consequence is losing our intellectual form, our critical thinking skills, and our ability to deeply engage with complex ideas. Our ancestors might have only received news from within their village or a few kilometers away. Today, we are instantly connected to what happens on the other side of the planet. While it’s good to be connected, is it always good to be bombarded by millions of pieces of information that overwhelm our emotions and paralyze us, knowing we can do nothing about them? This constant bombardment causes our brains to process everything too quickly, even the information that would matter under different circumstances—like family.

It is alarming when scrolling through social media becomes more interesting than a conversation with a parent or drawing silly faces with your child. Doesn’t it worry you that young people might become the slaves of what Aldous Huxley warned us about—that pleasure will be our undoing? When what once was pleasure becomes slavery, we lose control. So, how can we retake control? And is it too late?

Recently, I heard someone say they’d defy their intoxicated brain—fogged by social media, scrolling, toxic news, and a short attention span—by reading something truly challenging. Not a blog article (no offense to bloggers!), not a recipe, not an Instagram post, not even a short story, but a genuinely demanding text that would reactivate the brain. When you have a short attention span, whether you recognize it or not, it’s unlikely you’ll pick up a hefty book like War and Peace or a dense theoretical text. But the idea isn’t to read the whole thing. The idea is to take just one page of that challenging text today.

Start with just one page of something by Kant—yes, hardcore philosophy. Highlight words and thoughts. Look up references. Take a few minutes to truly digest the text. Feed yourself with it. Just read it. Try to do this for a couple of weeks or months without expecting to finish it (unless you genuinely want to). Read for the sake of reading, for the sake of grasping random thoughts, communicating with the author, and refreshing your brain to independently observe, think, question, and analyze. Oh, how our poor generation needs this! 

Here’s a challenge for all of us:

3 Hard-Core Books to Defy Your Mind:

1. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant – A deep dive into the nature of human understanding and experience.

2. Being and Time by Martin Heidegger – A philosophical exploration of existence, time, and what it means to “be.”

3. Ulysses by James Joyce – A stream-of-consciousness novel that pushes the limits of narrative structure and language.

Are you ready for the challenge? Consider how your brain can be rejuvenated and how it will thank you later.

Yours, dedicated to a fresh-minded generation,
Andri

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