Training our attention

Why reading long-form journalism is a powerful personal trainer for attention

As adults, we are increasingly losing our ability to pay attention to what is in front of us. I see this in myself by my inability to remember conversations or thought processes when I am on my phone and the constant pull to consume short, snappy pieces of content. To this end, I recently bought The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (who writes

After Babel

) which details the rise in mental illness in childhood due to increasing smartphone usage. This concept is not surprising to me, but what has been surprising is that my demographic (Zillennial which is right at the end of Millennial and the beginning of Gen Z) really struggles with focusing our attention on what is right in front of us. In an increasingly attention-driven economy, I have been challenged to retrain my mind of how to pay attention and I have approached this largely through an increased consumption of long-form journalism.

Last year, I read the book Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro. I picked this book up from a lovely little bookstore in Indiana called Naughty Dog Books (if you are ever near this bookstore, you must visit!) and my impetus for buying this book was that I had always struggled to keep up with the news and felt like I needed to consume media to be a ‘well-informed person’.

However, Bilbro laid out an argument about media consumption I did not expect. He encouraged a certain indifference towards the news in favor of prioritizing the reading of long form journalism. “The goal of a properly attentive life is right love and right action, and this goal is not served when we are caught up in distant dramas.” Bilbro draws upon the arguments of Blaise Pascal that argue we can be indifferent because we believe that God is in control and that He is faithful through everything that happens. Bilbro does not argue that we should forgo knowing what is going on with the world, but that we should be thoughtful about our consumption and focus more on our immediate community that we can directly interact with.

“The goal of a properly attentive life is right love and right action, and this goal is not served when we are caught up in distant dramas.” - Jeffrey Bilbro

Bilbro continues his discussion by distinguishing between ‘chronos’ which is more of a modern understanding of time versus ‘kairos’ which is more of a seasonal focus. The typical news cycle follows the idea of chronos as ‘breaking news’ is pushed to our phones and shared minute-by-minute on social media. This kind of cycle leads to fragmented attention characterized by constant FOMO and a disorganized flitting about since people are not able to focus on the community/people in front of them and instead caught up in the world at large.

To combat this, Bilbro recommends engaging with information outlets that follow more of a kairos-based model meaning that they post content centered around a theme and not subject to the sway of the current cultural concern or breaking news stories.

Photo by Ashni on Unsplash

As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I will avoid summarizing more of it and instead encourage you to read it (or if I know you personally, you are welcome to borrow it!). Finishing this book, I realized I needed to change how I was consuming content online. My attention span was less than that of an Instagram Reel and I was consuming ideas from others quickly without really taking the time to understand them. I walked away from reading Bilbro’s book with the goal of committing to reading more long form journalism. While I read many books (which are a really long form of journalism), I believe there is a benefit to sifting through a myriad of ideas by reading well thought out articles and blogs since I may or may not want to commit to reading a whole book about each idea.

Bilbro recommended a few kairotic news sources and that were less focused on/oriented around time. One of these was Plough Quarterly which I previously heard of from my friend

Joy Clarkson

who is the Books and Culture Editor for Plough. Plough publishes a quarterly Christian magazine centered around a specific theme. It is full of long form journalism pieces, art, poems, and book reviews. Over the last year, the issues have covered the following themes: money, how to think about enemies, repair, and nature. I have thoroughly appreciated the work of Plough and their focus on a timeless theme instead of a timely news update.

As I have read more Plough articles and Substacks (which are another great form of longer-form journalism!) I have found myself tying together ideas across different books and articles I am reading as well as a deeper appreciation for a well thought out argument that cannot be communicated in a 6-second video.

I would argue that long-form journalism is often more difficult to read than a quick article or blog post because it requires investment, attention, and commitment which all hold a lot of weight in our attention-grabbing world. This kind of engaging with ideas involves a commitment to the author to read their piece of work, a commitment to yourself to try to understand the arguments, and a commitment to invest your time because you believe that this is worthwhile.

One of my life principles is that what we would consider the good things in life arise from dedication, commitment, and resiliency - none of which are easy and take both time and effort. Taking the time to train my attention by denying myself quick dopamine hits of content and instead investing in reading a 20 minute article and tracing the thread of logic throughout is worthwhile. It forces me to focus my mind and really think as opposed to jumping from idea to idea, but not truly pondering each one. Making the effort to read widely helps me better understand my views and opinions on different topics as well.

Karen Swallow Prior

recently wrote a piece about ‘resisting a new dark age’ (originally coined by James Bridle) which discusses our continual pursuit of knowledge/information and how we can miss the goodness around us in our families, friends, church, and nature. She writes: “Sometimes unknowing can be better than certain kinds of knowing.” I would argue that engaging deeply with a few ideas by giving them our full attention and not all the thoughts and ideas that swirl across news channels can help us be more grounded and foster better conversations in community.

Sometimes unknowing can be better than certain kinds of knowing.  - Karen Swallow Prior

My attention span is still far from where I hope it to be, but it is much better trained than a year ago and I have long-form journalism to thank for that.