Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction

by Chris Bailey

In one recent survey, 83 percent of Americans responded that they didn’t spend any time whatsoever “relaxing or thinking” in the twenty-four-hour period before they were surveyed. Another study sought to measure exactly how resistant participants were to mind wandering. In the first stage of the study, researchers attached two shock electrodes to participants’ ankles, zapped them, and then asked how much the participants would pay to not receive the shock again. Around three quarters of the group agreed they’d pay to not receive the shock again. In the second stage, participants were left alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. The researchers kept the electrodes on during that time, on the off chance anyone wanted to shock himself again, saving himself from his own thoughts. This is where the study gets interesting, and somewhat sad. A full 71 percent of men in the study chose to self-administer an electric shock when left alone with their thoughts. Women fared better: only 26 percent chose to shock themselves again.