What It Takes to Reclaim Your Attention Span
About this episode
In this episode, host Julie Beck explores the impact of smartphones on attention spans and attempts to heal her own through an experiment.
Of all the potential effects of using smartphones, the one that seems to inspire the most anxiety is what scrolling could be doing to people’s attention. On social media (ironically), many people express a desire to “heal” their attention spans from the damage they feel technology has done. They’re picking up on something real. In one 2025 study, researchers found that blocking the internet on people’s phones for two weeks led to improvements in sustained attention equivalent to reversing 10 years of cognitive decline. In this final episode of How to Touch Grass, host Julie Beck embarks on an experiment to see if she can heal her own attention span. Beck and co-host Natalie Brennan also hear from Jenny Odell, the author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time, about how Odell’s antagonism for her phone actually helped her make peace with it, and how nature can teach us to pay deeper attention to the world around us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
People in this episode
Host: Julie Beck
Guests: Natalie Brennan, Jenny Odell
Topics covered
- attention span
- smartphone effects
- social media
- cognitive decline
- nature
- self-improvement
Keywords
- attention span
- smartphones
- cognitive decline
- social media
- nature
- self-improvement
- Jenny Odell
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Atlantic
Books & works: How to Do Nothing, Saving Time
More episodes of How to Touch Grass
- Why Learn Something That a Machine Can Do for You?
- How AI Could Make People More Anxious
- Introducing How To Touch Grass
- How to Age Up on a Warming Planet
- How to Define Old Age
- How to Age Up Together
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