Put that phone down : Are you easily distracted?

I came across this test from University College London on distractibility, “Are You Easily Distracted? A New Psychological Test Measures Distractibility”, and it got me thinking , am I easily distracted? I remember being a focused and hard working student during my high school and cegep years, but somewhere down the road I my attention was fractured between work, social media and my phone. Have I become an easily distracted person or something else was going on?

Merriam webster defines distractibility as a condition in which the attention of the mind is easily distracted by small and irrelevant stimuli.

However, some stimuli that appear small and irrelevant, like social media notifications, have tremendous power over our attention because they are strong social reinforcers. Our brains are wired to process social information above all other type of learning, many scientists believe they are as a result of evolutionary advantage, meaning social specimen prevailed over others, making them more likely to pass down their genetic material, which is in turn was preserved and honed over generations.

Following that notion, is it even correct to assume that compulsive phone-checking is a trait of high distractibility, or is it a direct consequence of reinforcement conditioning?

We’ve stumbled into this new era of instant gratification where likes and notifications are our primary social reinforcement currency. Are these global shift in how we communicate having a profound impact on our sustained attention and how we process social information?

And if compulsive phone checking is in fact a valid measure of distractibility, is there such a thing as acquired distractibility as a consequence of heavy social media and smart phone use? And if so, would distractibility generalize to other types of stimuli, would it impact attention span and what kind of social interactions we seek? And finally , is the social brain evolving towards new attentional patterns to meet the growing processing demands of our social environment? Am I in fact adapting to the environmental pressures of my time? Or should I just turn off my phone and finish my homework already?

University College London. “Are You Easily Distracted? A New Psychological Test Measures Distractibility.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 May 2007. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070530085016.htm>.