How do you prefer to consume content, and how has your focus changed over time?
Lately, after spending a lot of time online, I’ve noticed that the way I consume content has changed, and honestly, not for the better.
When I consume content on social media (or through screens in general), I tend to pay less attention, and my attention span feels much shorter.
On top of that, while exercising, I often listen to videocasts or podcasts, which means I’m not fully focused on one single activity. As a result, I sometimes feel like I’m not absorbing the information as well as I could.
One thing I’ve started experimenting with is reading books, textbooks, or workbooks early in the morning, before touching my phone or any other electronics. So far, it seems to help improve my focus.
How do you balance content consumption (especially digital vs analogue) to avoid shorter attention spans?
And do you prefer e-books or physical books?
Replies
I’ve noticed the same, too much scrolling has definitely reduced my focus. What’s helping is no-screen mornings and reading physical books, it improves concentration a lot compared to digital content.
I usually try to listen Audiobooks and podcasts whenever I'm driving long.
I used to consume a lot of long-form content like full blog posts, YouTube videos, and podcasts. But over time, my focus shifted more towards content that gets to the point faster.
Now I mostly prefer:
short actionable posts on X
case studies with real numbers
quick tutorials
people sharing what actually worked for them
I think my attention span changed because there’s just too much content everywhere now. So if something teaches me one useful thing in 2 minutes, I value that more than a 30-minute video full of fluff.
Same observation here. The shift from "depth reading" to "surface scanning" is real, and honestly feels involuntary once you spend 4+ hours a day on screens.
The morning book thing works for me too — the key is consistency before the default behavior kicks in. One thing I've added: time-boxing. Reading for 25 minutes with no interruptions beats an hour of distracted skimming.
Curious: do you notice different absorption rates between physical books vs e-readers, or is the morning-first timing the actual lever here?