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One of the many complaints of the modern working professional, besides stress and obscene working hours, is that it is so difficult to concentrate on anything. Many people in their twenties or older are reporting a significant shortening of their attention spans, in comparison to the time just a decade ago when the media blitz was not quite so ubiquitous.

However, we cannot just blame our difficultly for concentration on “the media” or “culture.” Our short attention spans are also the product of our evolution. Studies suggest that humans might have developed the tendency to be distracted as a survival trait. Early humans could easily detect the entrance of something “new” or strange into the environment, such as the arrival of a predator or potential mate. They would then get distracted from their present tasks and do something to deal with the immediate threat or windfall. This response was often essential to survival. Otherwise, many solitary cavemen would have been so focused on, say, making a spearhead that they would not have noticed the approach of a hungry saber-toothed tiger.

Unfortunately, this response has a very different effect in todays’ mostly urbanized, fast-paced world. The “new” stimuli that distract us are not saber-toothed tigers but billboards, text messages, celebrity gossip, etc. We are over-stimulated to the point of almost becoming numb. Instead of bringing essential stimuli to our attention, our instincts distract us from important tasks and priorities.
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