Article by Larisa Dina
The long-term value of reducing scrolling in the (in)attention economy and how reading this newsletter is a step towards intentional engagement.
Globally 5.6 billion people own a smartphone, that is more than half the world’s population. Around the same number have a social media account. This means that most of us are no strangers to the habit of picking up our phone to ‘quickly’ check a notification that easily turns into a much lengthier scrolling session. At some point down the line, our eyes grow wider as if woken up from a sleepwalking episode, only to realise that 10 minutes have passed, we’re signing up for the next half-marathon in the local area, and as a result we have whittled away time we barely have. How did we get here?
The neuroscience of want
The bottom line is, our brains are hardwired to chase novelty and quick rewards. This relates to a brain chemical that has received a lot of attention in recent years – good guess, it is dopamine. This one molecule serves many functions, but let’s think about it as the “want” chemical. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not as much involved in pleasure as in the anticipation of pleasure, and fuelling motivated behaviour. Think of it as that surge of energy you get when you realise you might have finally found a clever solution for that problem you were stuck on for so long just in time for the important meeting on Thursday morning. The repeated associations between a rewarding experience and feeling energised is called long-term potentiation, and is essentially how our brains learn to continue to pursue this experience again and again in the future.
Our very own, built-in prediction error machine
Here’s the catch – this doesn’t happen with real-life, in-person experiences only. In fact, modern tech companies are capitalising on variable reward schedules to keep us longer on their platforms. These variable schedules are, as the name suggests, unpredictable. Sometimes the notification takes us to the latest breaking news on a topic that we are personally invested in, other times it is an unexciting email from a subscription we forgot to cancel. It is this unpredictability of the actual outcome in relation to our expectations that makes checking our phone in the middle of a supposedly deep work session so attractive. In other words, these are reward prediction errors – when the content we are exposed to is as good or better than expected, we immediately feel energised; but when the reality doesn’t live up to the expectation, we feel worse than we did to begin with. If you already drew this parallel – it’s true, this is exactly how slot machines work too.
Can we make it shorter?
That’s how we’ve come to exist in an inattention economy. It’s no longer required to make a phone call to catch-up with colleagues or pick up a physical copy of a newspaper on the commute. In 2025, attention is the strongest currency, and it looks like many of us are in a state of perpetual overdraft.
In fact, the Economist also alluded to not only a decline in long-form content consumption (i.e., reading books), but also a qualitative change in the books that are being read in a piece published this September. Reviewing popular books (New York Times bestsellers), they reported a steep decline in the words per sentence from 1931 through to 2025. The factors at play here are multifaceted and complex, but one thing is clear – the reduced attention span carefully encouraged by the fast-moving algorithms in recent years is not helping.
What about our mental health?
There is a cost to scrolling. On the work front, data suggests that, on average, the attention span on any screen in recent years is about 47 seconds. Is this a bad thing? Quite possibly, as the frequency of attention switching has been associated with stress, as measured using heart rate monitors. It is not only the objective experience of stress, but also a switch cost, meaning that as our attention is reoriented towards a new activity, that new activity takes some time to get into, and so does the initial activity once we return to it. In other words, constant interruptions are neither enjoyable nor productive.
For our general wellbeing, a recent clinical trial, a type of study that is able to disentangle cause and effect, reported clinically meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms and stress, and improvements in sleep quality and wellbeing following 3 weeks of reducing screen time to 2 or less than 2 hours a day (note: the average smartphone user is on their phone for 3 hours 46 minutes a day!), therefore establishing a direct link between how much time we spend on our phones and how we feel.
Why slower, more deliberate content is the path forward
Information is more accessible than ever before, but what is missing in the current economy is sustained attention. The professionals who thrive in the next decade won’t be those with the fastest reaction times to notifications, but those who can think deeply while others get constantly distracted.
Screen time isn’t inherently harmful – it’s a tool, and like any other tool, it should serve your purposes, not hijack them. The difference lies in intentional engagement: scheduling deliberate periods for digital consumption, and making space for slower content like this newsletter, books, or quality journalism.
In a world optimised for distraction, your undivided attention isn’t just valuable – it’s your competitive edge.
Article by Larisa Dina is a researcher finishing her PhD at King’s College London, who is writing exclusively for the Purposeful Group companies of which we are a part, (formerly Finitor). For over 6 years, her focus has been on digital health, including evaluating the Drink Less app for reducing harmful alcohol consumption and leveraging the Brain Explorer app to understand how people make decisions in their daily lives. Since 2023, Larisa has been on a mission to help increase access to therapy and improve clinical outcomes through the use of AI.
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