How having background streams on 24/7 completely ruined my attention span
I used to think I was just being efficient. For the past three years, every time I sat down to work, cook, or even do my skincare, I had to have a Twitch stream or a long-form video essay running on my iPad. I told myself it was just white noise to block out the quiet and keep me company while I grinded through boring spreadsheets for my job.
Last month I finally realized how bad this habit messed up my brain. I tried to sit down and read a book for once. No background noise, just me and the text. Within literally three minutes, I felt this overwhelming, physical itch to reach for my phone or open a browser tab to put something on. My brain flat out refused to process the sentences without some kind of secondary stimulation running in the background.
It is like I have trained my brain to require a constant split-focus just to function. Now, if I try to do a single task in absolute silence, my internal monologue goes completely off the rails and I start spacing out immediately . I can barely sit through a movie with my friends without checking my phone because the pacing feels too slow compared to the constant media feed I am used to.
I am trying to break this by forcing myself to do at least two hours of deep work every day in total silence. It feels like absolute torture and my productivity has tanked because I spend half the time fighting the urge to click away. If you are constantly blasting your brain with background videos just to avoid the silence, seriously turn it off before your focus gets completely shot too.