My Attention Span Was Shot. Here’s How I Got It Back
- Cody Thomas Rounds
- Jun 1
- 6 min read
My attention spam was shot. It wasn’t a grand epiphany, like the moment I once imagined I’d have when the weight of my life choices finally crashed through the windshield. No, it was smaller. Funnier, in retrospect. I was reading a book—something smart and complicated to impress myself—and I caught myself reading the same sentence four times in a row. Not because it was profound or elegantly phrased, but because I simply could not, for the life of me, absorb it.
My brain was a skipping stone, bouncing off the surface of the words, never sinking into meaning. Each time I tried to read, I’d get halfway through a sentence, think about what I was going to have for lunch, wonder if anyone had texted me, check my phone (they hadn’t), open Instagram, scroll through two minutes of videos of people making grilled cheese sandwiches, then return to the book—only to realize I’d forgotten where I left off.
It wasn’t just a distraction problem. It was a full-blown attention crisis.
And it wasn’t new.
For years, I’d convinced myself that my scatterbrain was just a byproduct of being busy. Who isn’t busy these days? It’s practically a virtue, a badge of honor. But the truth was more embarrassing: I wasn’t busy with important things. I was busy with everything. My time was being siphoned off by notifications, endless scrolling, newsfeeds engineered to make me feel like I wasn’t doing enough with my life.
I wasn’t just distracted. I was being robbed.
The Great Digital Robbery
Somewhere along the way, I’d handed over the keys to my mind. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I didn’t wake up one morning and think, “Today, I will abandon my ability to focus and become a drooling consumer of algorithmically curated nonsense.” No, it was sneakier than that. It was death by a thousand taps: a quick check of my email here, a glance at social media there, a scroll through online shopping “just for fun.”
I mean, who needs to stare into the existential void when you can distract yourself with 15-second videos of people organizing their refrigerators?
The more I tried to multitask—answer emails while watching Netflix while refreshing Twitter—the more fragmented I became. My thoughts felt like a deck of cards thrown into the air, with no hope of landing in order.
And so, one afternoon, after realizing I’d spent an entire hour toggling between tabs and still hadn’t finished a single task, I decided I had to do something drastic.
I needed a detox. A digital detox.
My (Deeply Flawed) Plan
I won’t lie—I approached this with the overconfidence of a person who once decided to take up jogging and was shocked to discover it involved actual running.
The plan was simple: No social media for 30 days. No mindless scrolling. No checking my phone every five minutes just to see if anyone liked my latest post. I even deleted apps from my phone, like I was banishing demons. I told myself I’d read more, think deeper, maybe even rediscover the simple pleasures of staring out a window.
For the first few days, I was a mess.
I reached for my phone at red lights, in line at the grocery store, during commercial breaks. My thumb hovered over where Instagram used to be, like an amputee trying to scratch a phantom limb. I found myself staring blankly at walls, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and realizing how much of my day had previously been filled with the noise of digital junk.
There was a moment on day three when I sat in silence for so long I became convinced the cat was judging me.
But slowly, something shifted.
📢 Read More in This Series: Digital Detox: Reclaiming Your Life in the Digital Age
A Mind Begins to Return
Around the end of the first week, I noticed I was reading—actual reading, not just scanning headlines or scrolling Twitter. I finished a chapter of a book without once checking my phone. I sat through an entire meal without looking at a screen, and it was, I have to admit, both boring and oddly peaceful.
I discovered that conversations with friends were richer when I wasn’t half-listening while simultaneously composing a tweet in my head. I noticed details—the way light fell across the table, the quiet rhythm of breathing during meditation. I even started writing by hand, which felt both quaint and revolutionary, like I’d been transported to the 1800s and was about to draft a letter to a faraway friend.
I called this my “focus gym.” It wasn’t fancy. It involved setting a timer for 30 minutes and doing one thing—just one. No checking email. No hopping between tabs. No digital breadcrumbs leading me down rabbit holes. At first, my brain protested, like a spoiled child denied a cookie. But after a few days, it began to settle.
The mental noise started to fade.
The Surprising (and Sometimes Annoying) Side Effects
Of course, it wasn’t all enlightenment and deep focus. There were moments when I felt too aware—of how often I’d used my phone to avoid uncomfortable feelings, of how much I relied on screens to fill silences.
I also discovered that boredom is a skill I’d completely lost. I’d forgotten how to just be—to sit with a thought, to let my mind wander without external stimulation. For a while, this was deeply uncomfortable. But then, like a muscle stretching after years of disuse, my capacity for boredom expanded. I stopped fearing it.
I even noticed my dreams became more vivid—likely because I wasn’t falling asleep to the blue glow of a screen. I started sleeping better, waking up less groggy, and feeling (dare I say it) a little more human.
The Not-So-Perfect Recovery
Let me be clear: I didn’t emerge from this detox a Zen master with an attention span of steel. I didn’t throw my phone into the ocean or start living off the grid. The truth is, after 30 days, I reinstalled a few apps. I checked social media again. But here’s the difference: I noticed what it did to my brain.
I noticed how, after just a few minutes of scrolling, my thoughts became more scattered. I noticed the subtle pull to check my phone even when nothing was happening. And I noticed that I didn’t like how it felt.
That awareness changed everything.
I became more intentional about how I used technology. I set phone-free times in the morning and evening. I kept social media off my phone except when I needed it for work. I replaced mindless scrolling with actual hobbies—walking, reading, writing things that no one would ever “like” or comment on.
My attention span isn’t perfect, but it’s no longer broken. It’s like a garden that got wildly overgrown with weeds, but now has paths cleared and flowers starting to bloom again.
If You’re Feeling Fractured
I know I’m not alone. We’re living in a world designed to hijack our attention. If you feel scattered, distracted, constantly tugged between tabs and texts and notifications—you’re not broken. You’re just swimming in a current that’s pulling you away from yourself.
The good news? You don’t need to quit technology or become a digital hermit to get your mind back. You just need to pause, notice, and start making small, deliberate changes.
Try a weekend without social media. Or set a timer and focus on one task for 30 minutes. Or just go for a walk without your phone and see what your mind does when it’s left alone for a while.
You might be surprised at what bubbles up.
Cody-
Additional Resources
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