Ah, the modern condition. We carry the entire world in our pockets and yet, somehow, we can’t remember why we just walked into the kitchen. It’s a marvel, really. Our attention spans—once capable of long, uninterrupted conversations, deep thoughts, and the occasional completion of a book—now rival that of a caffeinated goldfish.

We exist in a state of perpetual interruption. Pings, dings, and the ever-looming specter of unread notifications pull us from one half-baked thought to another, leaving us in a swirling vortex of half-written emails, half-watched shows, and half-listened-to conversations. The result? A society brimming with information but starved for focus.

The Myth of Multitasking

We like to tell ourselves we can do it all. We can listen to a podcast while responding to an email, while texting a friend, while checking the news, while… Wait, what was I saying?

The truth is, we’re not multitasking—we’re context-switching at an alarming rate, and our brains are paying the price. Studies show that constant switching between tasks doesn’t make us more efficient; it makes us more prone to mistakes, more stressed, and ironically, less productive.

The Digital Attention Economy

Let’s be honest—our distraction isn’t accidental. It’s engineered. Every app, every notification, every infinite scroll is designed to keep us engaged, clicking, and consuming. The longer we stay, the more data we generate, the more ads we see. We are not customers; we are the product.

It’s a battle for our brains, and we’re losing spectacularly.

How to Reclaim Your Sanity (and Your Attention Span)

1. Turn Off the Noise – Those notifications? Silence them. Your group chat drama can wait.
2. Single-Task Like It’s 1995 – Do one thing at a time. Radical, I know.
3. Schedule Your Doomscrolling – If you must spiral into the abyss of trending news, at least put a time limit on it.
4. Rediscover Boredom – Remember staring out a window and letting your mind wander? Turns out, it’s great for creativity.
5. Be Present – Put down the phone, make eye contact, and engage with the living, breathing humans around you. They’re quite interesting, I promise.

We have never been more connected, and yet, we’ve never been more detached. Maybe it’s time to stop treating our attention spans like disposable commodities. Maybe it’s time to reclaim our ability to think deeply, engage meaningfully, and—dare I say—be bored every once in a while.

Because if we don’t, we might just wake up one day and realize we’ve been scrolling through life instead of living it.

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Julienne Ryan Humorist, Speaker, Trainer, Facilitator, Coach

Julienne B. Ryan began her professional career at age five when she did TV commercials and learned important things like “the teamsters always eat first,” her social security number and how to endorse checks for bank deposit.

Ryan studied psychology in college because she wanted to understand humans. She conducted her “field work” in a variety of roles, hearing the phrases “merger synergies, reorganizations, downsizing and rightsizing for change” more times than she cares to mention.

Later she enrolled in an Ivy League graduate school where she paid oodles of money to validate her prior on-the-job learning experiences. However, she did learn to name drop up-to-date theories and trendy psychologists with alarming ease.

Ryan evolved into working in “Talent Management,” a fancy way of saying “try to find people and keep them moderately happy.” With inadequate budgets and staff allocations, she had to find creative ways to encourage her staff to work effectively. These ranged from begging and borrowing resources, improvising childcare, telling stories and even giving snacks as rewards. She tried to convince herself that working a bazillion hours and “multi-tasking” equaled achievement.

Her work took place in cubicles, conference rooms or, with luck, in offices with a door. Occasionally she would make the time to emerge from her allotted real estate to really talk to people. Ryan learned something transformative in the process:

Yes, she was effective. But not because she used fancy theories – or gave great snacks. Ryan’s success, her staff believed, was a result of her uncanny knack for weaving storytelling with humor to motivate and encourage them. Crucially, they encouraged Ryan to de-emphasize “that normal HR stuff” and focus on bringing her unique storytelling skills to a broader stage.

Thanks to them, Ryan continues to collect, connect and tell stories in her work helping people find their “true selves in the world of work.

She is the author of the humorous, all true "The Learned It In Queens Communications Playbook - Winning Against Distraction!".that now includes a workbook and is available at booksellers across the globe..

She is a guest contributor to The Procurement Foundry, LifeBlood, and the global storytelling community.

Certifications include
Accumatch (BI) Behavior Intelligence
Narativ Applied Storytelling Methodologies
Collective Brains – Mentorship Methodologies