How to develop your attention span

Anyone familiar with the newly coined phrase 'the Gen Z gaze'?  If not, this is an experience anyone with a grounding in reality and developed social sensibility can have when approaching a member of Gen Z, and instead of locking eyes and beginning their expected exchange (ordering food, asking for directions, whatever we think we're doing here) - they get a blank stare as though this Gen Z person just arrived on earth and their program download hasn't completed.

I don't mean to pick on Gen Z.  They've had a really unfair shake with screens and social media replacing their childhood where they would have learned how to interact with other humans face to face in a meaningful way.  This ability takes many many repetitions, it's clear why they are lacking.  That said, there's something deeper at play here that many Gen Z and some Millennials have fallen victim to - not having an adequate attention span.

What's an adequate attention span?  Someone feeling comfortable not having the rapid stimulation only screens can provide for several hours.  Someone who can wait in a waiting room at Urgent Care for say, 4 hours, without using their phone, talking to anyone else, reading a magazine, just sitting in their thoughts and patiently waiting for their name to be called.  Someone who can read a good long dense book with big words and big ideas.  Someone who can watch the director's cut of Das Boot (nearly 5 hours, slow burn, all in a submarine with subtitles) and appreciate it's beauty, suspense, pacing, masterful storytelling and cinematography.  Someone who can be a great friend because they can listen to a very upset loved one go on and on about something devastating they're going through and since they're processing it while talking about it takes discipline, focus, and applied compassion to track along with them.

Do you think you maybe have something to work on in this space?  If you do, let's start getting on the good path.  First, you're going to need to take disciplined breaks for any and all screens on a regular basis.  This is because an attention span can be developed and it can be diminished - it isn't a one way ticket.  Just ask Grandpa with his iPad.  So, depending on how bad your screen addiction is, start small and steadily increase the breaks as you go.  Maybe start with 30-minutes on, 30-minutes off for the first week, then 30-minutes on, 1 hour off for the second week, then 20 minutes on, 90-minutes off the third week, then 20 minutes on, 2 hours off the fourth week, and maybe end up somewhere like 15 minutes on, 3 hours off - or if you're going to watch a TV show or movie - let that be your one screen time that day aside from work (if you need your computer).

Now that you're reducing screen time, you can start filling it with experiences that will develop your human skills - like attention span, communicating in person, listening in person, connecting with other humans.  Seek out experiences to meet with strangers.  Find a meet up or visit a nursing home.  Listen to stories people have.  Ask questions.  Go on a walk without any music or you phone and then sit in part for an hour.  Listen to the birds, people watch, feel the breeze, just exist in space.  Challenge yourself to sit in silence with yourself as often as you can.  Within days you will start to notice - this isn't as difficult or excruciating or impossible as it seemed when you started. 

Once you start developing a space where you can stand to exist in your own skin without constant distraction, escape, disconnect - you will start to learn about social cues.  You will realize that if you're working behind a counter, the sales process begins when a customer walks in the door.  You make eye contact, show that you're present and with it, and greet them, offer any help.  You being distracted or having your mind somewhere else isn't just rude, it's bizarre.  You will start to understand everyone else's reaction to the Gen Z gaze - and you can call it out in your peers.