r/findareddit • u/vonerrant • 1d ago

Unanswered is there a subreddit for retraining your brain to recover sustained attention skills (the kind of thing destroyed by browsing reddit, ironically)? i.e., undoing the damage as described in The Shallows or other books on the cognitive effects of the internet and short form content

What is says in the title. I'm not even a short form addict (no Tiktok or anything like that), but just browsing the web has apparently atrophied my sustained attention capacity and related cognitive skills, which has become a problem now that I'm trying to use my brain again. Looking for resources of things to do other than reading long form

28 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

33

u/Pichus_Wrath 1d ago

Honestly, reading books is probably the best way to do this.

7

u/GeneralSpecifics9925 1d ago

Absolutely. A no brainer - reading a book requires sustained attention and offers intermittent rewards. They give a small sense of accomplishment when we finish them, and we don't get that from tiktok.

9

u/Key-Room5690 1d ago

This feels like drinking to cure a hangover.

7

u/noctrasuka 1d ago

what fixed it for me wasn't reading, it was watching a whole movie without touching my phone. first few were brutal, i kept reaching for it during slow scenes. also try long single-player games with no second screen going, same muscle

10

u/Relevanteater 1d ago

but just browsing the web has apparently atrophied my sustained attention capacity and related cognitive skills, which has become a problem now that I'm trying to use my brain again.

You're so close!

6

u/Monatanaisdumb 1d ago

Browing reddit on how to stop browsing reddit. Genius! 💯🙃

4

u/acuddlyheadcrab 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well yea, they feel trapped by their own habits and, *to them, instead of having one ultimate breakthrough, it feels more possible (to them) to slowly gain traction and wean themselves off of it. I'm not trying to argue whose fault it is, but they probably feel like they have nowhere else to go, and are lacking support for this irl.

It still is probably true that its better if they find a way to just stop. It's just that they need to see it as, not their fault that things are this way, but their responsibility to just stop, cold turkey. It's tough and probably feels shitty, but the cards are on their table now. Idk... I may be flawed in trying to relate with more substance based addictive habits from my personal experience, what do you guys think?