What happened to our attention spans?

0:00Frequency podcast network. Stories that matter, podcast that resonate. As a proud Gen Z, I love using my phone. I love tech, I love social media, I love it all. Okay, what I don't love is how naked I feel without it, like how disconnected I feel. If I don't have my phone, even if I'm not expecting a call or like a notification to come through, having it on me still feels comforting, but at the same time, restricting. Like for some reason, I can't focus because I'm always checking my phone or unlocking it, and then going on like Instagram or TikTok to school randomly, even if I'm in the middle of a task, it's like debilitating, but also hard to resist. So when I came across an article that said executive function was in short supply, I immediately knew I wasn't the only one, which was comforting, but also scary in a sense, because how is it

1:05that we're all just losing our attention span? Like why is it so much harder to finish a task now than it once was before? Our phones to blame is it AI, is it social media, and at this point are we too far gone? I'm Maria Castain, and today on a big story, I'm talking to Dr. Adrian Owen, a professor of cognitive neuroscience and imaging at the University of Western Ontario. Here at a book called Think Before You Think, Understanding and Mastering Executive Function, and today we're digging into how we can reclaim our executive function. Adrian, thank you so much for joining me today on the big story, Glad to have you on. Yeah, thanks for having me on. So what exactly is executive function? Let's start right there. I knew you were going to start with that question, so executive function is a very interesting set of brain processes. It's things that we can all do. We're born with them. They develop

2:05as we get into adulthood, but it's really in a nutshell. It's things like your ability to all plan, organize your life, make decisions, inhibit what might be the first thing that comes to mind or the first response or action that you might do. So in many ways, neuroscientists think of it as the control system of the brain. It's the way that we use to control other more automated brain functions. That's so fascinating. So what is like our first experience or interaction with executive function as like a baby, for example? What are the first kind of signs of it developing? Well, I think that's one of the interesting things is that babies are born in the infants barely have any executive functions, which is why they tend to be a bit impulsive. They'll respond immediately to whatever it is that is in their immediate vicinity. Obviously, they don't make complicated plans about their lives. Like, you know, well, I'll go off to university when I'm 18 and that doesn't happen until they get much older. So on the

3:12executive function side of things, not very much really starts to happen until a child sort of gets to... In fact, you don't really see the earliest signs of it until they're four or five, and then it's really even a little bit older than that before they start to become a little bit more obvious. You wrote an article about executive function and it being in short supply. I want to ask you, when did you take notice it was in short supply? Well, I started working... I started working out of executive function for my PhD in 1988. So a long, long time ago. So I've been working on this problem for more than 30 years. And back then, people didn't really talk about executive function. And really, the reason I ended up writing the article and the article came from the book, of course. It's because it's now, it's everywhere. People talk about this as though it's a problem people can have. We talk about like kids having problems with executive control. If your parent or grandparent is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, they

4:16might be told they're having problems with executive function early on. It seems to me that it's sort of entered common... Common parlance, as it were. People use this expression, but it's remarkable that not many people really know exactly what it is. And then when I really started to dig into it and look at it and understand it a bit more and where we've come, you know, a neuroscientific understanding of it, I realized that people also think that it's something that's slipping away. And very obvious examples are, I'm sure you know somebody will say to you, I can't concentrate as well as I used to. You know, none of us are able to remember quite as well as we used to. Well, you know, my age is pretty natural. But even younger people say, I can't remember things anymore. I can't focus anymore. I can't concentrate anymore. So there is this sense that our executive's bugs are slipping away. But the point I was making the article is actually that I don't think that's the case. I don't think they're slipping away at all. Okay. So let me tell you this. I really, when I read

5:20that article, I felt like you wrote this article for me personally. I felt like you called me out in the article because wow, did I ever connect with what you were saying? A little bit about me, I never had any attention span issues. I felt like I was able to focus on a task and get it done. But wow, within the past, maybe two to three years, I cannot find myself doing something without picking up my phone without checking Instagram without even when I'm not prompted to. I don't have a notification on my phone to open an app or to check my messages. But wow, do I have the like burning desire in me to just stop what I'm doing and start something else or stop what I'm doing and talk about something else? And so, you know, to your point of like, it's really in everyday dialogue now of how people think they're losing executive function and it's going away and it's in short supply. I feel that way. I feel like I've been saying that for the past like year, you know to my family or my friends, I'm like, I can't focus anymore. I don't know what's going on with me. It's my phone. But you don't think it's as bad as it is. I want to know

6:26why. What's going on? Well, I think people think it's as bad as it is. And I think you illustration it beautifully there. And by the way, I did write the article for you. Thank you. Well, I read it for people like you because I think most people are like you that they feel that life is kind of slipping away from them because, you know, they're endlessly not able to complete the task they set out to do because they get distracted by a different task. And it's completely natural, I think, for us to think that, you know, that somehow our brains have adapted and we're not able to concentrate as long as we used to or remember things as well as we used to. But in fact, what I think is going on is that we've just changed the world. And the point I really wanted to make through the article is that this is a choice you make. And I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative sense. But, you know, there's nothing inherently dangerous about cell phone usage. But I understand

7:27completely that it's very distracting. It can inhibit all sorts of other things that you want to do. It gets in the way it interrupts. It can be annoying. It can make you feel like your brain is literally unable to stay on track anymore. But ultimately, and this is where your executive functions come in, that's the choice you make, right? And you can choose not to do that. And my sort of call to arms, if for one of a better expression, is that I think it's where it's executive functions that we're sort of giving up. And when we shouldn't do that because they are the most powerful parts of our brains. And I mean, they give you a sort of an analogy. I don't think technology augmenting our brains is a bad thing. And I wear reading glasses because my eyes aren't very good. I don't, I don't for a minute think, well, that's a bit of a cheat. You know, I'm, my sight is, is, is failing because I'm wearing glasses. I'm using this to augment the, or to extend the biological limits of my body. And I think a smartphone or, you know, whatever sort of AI or technology

8:33that you're using can be used in the same way. But I think it's also, I'm like a pair of glasses that you can't do much more with. I'll put them on your face. Unfortunately, it can get in the way of all sorts of other things and perform all sorts of other functions. And so I think it's, it's the really important thing is not that, you know, our brains are being, are being sort of gradually eroded by technology. It's that we've been distracted by technology. So the point that we're stopping using our brains, when in fact, you just should because many tasks will be just as easily accomplished with them. And many will be accomplished more easily. I mean, if you set out to read a book and you leave your phone with its notifications on, it's going to be a lot harder to concentrate on that book, especially if you have a lot of friends. And then if you maybe turn your phone off for three hours and go and, you know, it's somewhere and just focus on the book. And I think, you know, people listening to this

9:34try that little experiment, if you like, you'll realize that your ability to concentrate hasn't changed. If you take all the distractions out of your life, you can still do exactly what you used to do and what people that came before you were able to do. It's just that we've been structuring a world that's very distracting. And it's, which makes it a little bit harder to stay on track. Yeah, I got to appreciate that you don't completely like write tech off. And you don't fear monger with it either. You don't see it as this like, doomsday end all be all thing. That's like completely wrote us off, you know, when the reality is, as you've said, like we've been practicing cognitive offloading for decades, just with analog means like notepads or, you know, calendars, whatever. My question is though, do you think at all there is something inherently dangerous or harmful by cognitively offloading through tech versus analog means? I think the neuroscience actually suggests that there isn't. I mean, I'm fortunate as a very sort of nuanced argument

10:39because obviously there are issues related to screen time, for example, that are really all completely different. And, you know, I can really appreciate it. If somebody is sitting in front of a screen for eight hours a day, you're not getting any physical exercise, you're out socializing with friends. And, you know, there's a big screen time given that there obviously are implications related to social media and how that affects people's emotional wellbeing and these sorts of things. And I think I appreciate all of those things and I'm not addressing any of them. I'm really interested in just whether there's something inherently bad about deciding to use your phone to navigate your way from here to there or whether you should really try to do it using your brain. And I think, you know, the answer is there is no evidence that it makes you any worse. But I think, and this is the point I made in the article, I think it's really important that people make the conscious decision to keep using their executive functions. I think, you know, for me getting to an unfamiliar part of town to deliver my son to play his soccer game,

11:43using a satna, using satna, it's great, you know, I'm just going to take me a lot longer. I just want you to frustrating not to do that. And I don't think there are any great benefits for my brain for me to try and work out myself. But, you know, to go to the grocery store, I'm very familiar with this round the corner, I've been 100 times. Once I start pulling out my phone to tell me how to get to the grocery store, I know there's a problem, I think, there because I'm kind of handing over things and I'm perfectly capable of doing, you know, without really stretching myself. So I think that's sort of one aspect of it. The other again is about people taking control. I think one of the really interesting things about technology is it often allows us to leave our brains on what I call autopilot a bit longer than we might do without technology. It does make life tremendously easier. And this is the point I come back to several times in the article. I mean, life is tremendously easy, these very, very convenient. You know, we're told what to wear there, we're told what to buy, we're told what, you know, what's happening in the news, we've notified

12:45who's doing what where they are. Life is very easy, you just will seek out that information anymore. And again, I don't think the very fact that that is the case means that our brains are getting less able to do it. But I do think people should still try to exercise these abilities because you have a choice, right? And you are handing over control of your brain to technology in a sense. And, you know, there's another world where you decide exactly where you're going to shop. And you decide what you're going to buy. And you decide who you're going to date. And you, you know, without necessarily simply allowing technology to, or an algorithm somewhere to have made that decision for you. So, you know, again, I think it's not the technology itself is bad. But I think how you choose to use it is really important. You know, I watched a TikTok a few days ago, actually, where this woman said that, you know, we used to have to wait for each other to respond.

13:46And when we actually had to have like time elapsed before hearing from someone, you know, because people sometimes nowadays, Gen Z or sometimes even millennials, you know, if you don't get a text back or if you don't get a call back right away, you're kind of irritated. You're like, you know, why don't you text me back? Why aren't you communicating with me at the speed that, you know, we can nowadays? And it just, it was fascinating. She went on and she said that, you know, it was a normal thing to wait to anticipate, to long for something. And it brought in this idea of being okay with being uncomfortable. Now we're so, everything's so convenient. Everything is at our fingertips. And I feel like that kind of speaks to your point of convenience. And we choose to do the more convenient thing because it's easier and it's right there and why wouldn't we search up what the closest grocery store is instead of, you know, like figuring it out for ourselves. So I can appreciate your idea of convenience versus being uncomfortable and how that affects our, you know, cognitive offloading and executive functions. I think that's a really lovely example

14:49you've used there. And you know, as a neuroscientist, I would slightly reframe your friend or colleagues argument from, we used to have to wait, which is true. I mean, the description was correct, but I would say we used to control our lives. You know, we used to decide if we answered the phone, right? We used to decide when we checked our email. And that's another way of thinking about that is that, you know, you're in control. Right now I'm watching my, you know, the latest Netflix show. I don't want to answer email. But if my phone is pinging me saying, you've got this email and maybe it comes from, you know, the president of the university and something I'm up and I've got to respond immediately. And I'm, you know, it's, I'm losing control of other people's influence over my life. And as a neuroscientist, I think of my brain all the time. And it's your point. So, for me, it's controlling. As you say, as your friend or colleague said, you know, back in the day,

15:50we, we had much more control over when people could enter our lives. And, you know, way way back. Of course, you had to sort of send a letter to somebody if you wanted to communicate with them. And that would take maybe days or weeks, you know, to come back. And you obviously wouldn't sit there expecting an immediate reply. Whereas now, as you say, you said, a semester somebody and you've not got to reply three seconds, ladies, they, they, they hate me. Or they do. And, and that's, you know, that's, you're, you're making a choice there about, um, about what you are letting to control your life. And, and, and the, the thing about executive functions are those are what you have in your brain to control your brain and control you and control your behavior and control your responses. And yeah, you know, you can, you can give them up to something else, but just be very aware that that's what you're doing. Yeah. You talk about this idea of control and, and being, you know, very conscious as to how you use tech to cognitive offload. Um, the slippery slope of the, of our

16:54conversation has to do with AI, of course, because, you know, I, I do think people have gotten very comfortable with offloading tech and, and, and, you know, getting deeper into it with AI, where the offloading maybe turns more into intentionally having it perform functions instead of like offloading it to a certain point. Um, how can people retain that control and, and be more conscious to maybe not slip into the habit of completely letting AI take over a function from A to Z instead of, you know, just cognitively offloading a part of the function so that we can still choose how much we want to do versus how much we want to give the tech. Well, you know, the article was, was about a, a much broader argument I made in a book think before you think, which the point of that was really a lot is your question, which is, you know, a lot of this is choice. We're not being forced to do this. Uh, and we're making the choice because it's convenient for us to make the choice. Yes, it's being made rather attractive for us and it's easy to do. And it's

17:55a path of least resistance, but it's, it's, you know, it's still a choice you make. And I think AI is a really interesting example. I think, um, you know, one level, to me, it's just a natural extension of everything that's always gone before it. You know, we used it. As you said, as you said already, you know, we've always had ways of sort of augmenting our brain function way back to the, you know, days of post-its and calendars and physical calendars and stickers on the fridge. Right? Um, but, but, you know, now it's a whole lot easier. You can write it as I or a song or even, you know, probably generate an entire movie based with AI these days. And I think, um, that, obviously, you know, has its problems, but I think the problems are again about choices that we make. I think there are circumstances in which when used wisely, it can augment something that we, we've already done or created or worked with. And I think people's understanding of this will

18:55change quite rapidly over the next year or so because there are many studies coming out at the moment showing, for example, that people are writing essays using large language models. And the interesting thing about the people that do this is that, you know, when given a memory test, 10 minutes later, they can't tell you anything at all about the essay. Um, so it's not that they don't, it's not that they're not even generating the information themselves. They're not even reading information themselves. And that's where I think things get problematic because clearly, the person has contributed absolutely nothing. Again, I don't think this necessarily any strong evidence at the moment that it's going to erode people's brains, but it will make people much less sort of disciplined and able to think and able to know how to think and how to solve problems. You know, every time you solve a problem, I made this in a, this point in interview, I did recently, you know, every time you solve a problem in life, you work out how to solve a certain kind of problem. And you apply that somewhere else. And I see this in my young son all the time, he solves a problem

19:58and then two days later, he'll use the same general principles to solve the same problem. You know, whether it's estimating how big something is or how long something is or simple things. But you learn to solve problems by solving problems. And if you just don't ever solve a problem, you just ask chat to you, PT, right? It's not that you couldn't solve it, but you're back at the start, you're back at square one, you know, you don't have the sort of cognitive machinery built up over time that allows you to operate at a very high level as people with very well developed executive functions can do. And when you look at, you know, most of the very high functioning individuals in society, they are extremely well organized. They are extremely good at planning. Their lives are planned out, either for them or they plan them out. They're very focused on what it is they want to achieve. And you know, they get there through a series of pre planned steps without distraction.

20:59But you know, there aren't many people that are, you know, CEOs of major successful companies that just sort of wandering around doing the next thing that comes into their head. You know, most of these people that are successful in life, I've got it all planned out. And that's the executive functions and action. Adrian, I completely agree with everything you just said. Yes. I've got a convert. I'm not going to lie. I went into this conversation feeling very doomsday. I felt like I was doomed. I felt like my brain was fried. But I love that you really position this, you know, on choice. It really is up to us to if we don't like something or if we think something is uncomfortable to change it. And even if that means disrupting convenience and disrupting, you know, indulging ourselves, we still have the power to change and have it that maybe we don't think is the most healthy. So I really appreciate you coming on our show and breaking it down for us. Well, thanks very much. It was a delight to be here.

22:00And that was the big story. If you are anything like me and have trouble focusing or not giving into the random impulse to want to check your phone, we are not doomed. I would love to hear your thoughts on this conversation and how you plan on taking back that control, shoot a message on Instagram at the big story or at frequency pods or send us an email. Hello at the big story podcast.ca. The big story is produced by me, Maria Castane. Diana Kay is the head of strategy and content. Desi Nair is the manager of podcast operations. Dylan McGuire is our associate producer. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you on Monday.