We’re currently steeped in a battle for our attention. 

And we’re losing. Badly.

But it’s not necessarily our fault. 

The world — not to mention our campus and our individual lives — moves at an astonishing pace, and there is a deluge of information we could never hope to handle. 

Our smartphones and smartwatches alert us to every text message, email and phone call we receive. They notify us when our phone batteries have been charged enough, when there’s a special offer on Uber Eats, and, more recently, when Starbucks promoted a free cold foam giveaway.

Social media packs an even bigger punch. The leaders of major tech companies like Instagram, TikTok and X profit off getting consumers to doom-scroll through hundreds of posts and short videos. That’s not to say we don’t extract some benefit too. We can get entertainment, connect with friends and stay up to date with the world. 

While having all this information at our fingertips can be quite valuable, we miss something critical in the process. 

As media theorist Marshall McLuhan notably wrote in his 1964 book “Understanding Media,” “The medium is the message,” meaning we should focus more on how information is transmitted than on its contents.

The battle for our attention, and the way we get wrapped up in a fast-paced world, doesn’t mean we necessarily know less. But the way that information is given to us drastically changes the way we think. 

In academic spaces, we learn through a slow process. Typically, before a class lecture, students are tasked with reading books and excerpts from foundational texts, providing a rhetorical and intellectual basis for a set of topics. In class, professors lecture on these topics, and students connect these ideas in discussion with their peers. 

This process is extremely beneficial for our ability to think and reason critically.

We have the chance to connect the arguments or findings with our own experiences, other readings and related ideas. Without doing the reading, we may be able to explain the general concept in class, but there is little opportunity to connect deeply with the ideas.

But, outside of our courses, we frequently find ourselves in a space that emphasizes the opposite: We must know a little about a lot. 

Could a professor fit an entire lecture into 30 or 60 seconds? Definitely not. 

Social media requires ideas to be boiled down to the bare bones. Not knowing about every major development in politics, foreign affairs and culture may feel like the world is leaving you behind. 

I don’t count myself among the enlightened few who’ve escaped this. In fact, I write this on the heels of recognizing this reality in my own life over the past few weeks. I’m ashamed to admit I even scrolled through Instagram reels during a writing break I took while crafting this very column. 

However, I promise the solution is not abandoning technology and living the rest of your days on a deserted island. It’s returning value to the boring moments in our lives. 

When was the last time you were truly bored? 

Moreover, when was the last time you didn’t immediately try to fix that boredom by picking up your phone?

Scrolling on social media means roughly every few seconds, we experience a new, engaging piece of content. As much as I’ve attempted to highlight the issue with social media, there’s no denying it’s a consistently entertaining experience. 

Yet, the human experience just doesn’t work that way — it fluctuates. It has engaging highs, and slow and meandering lows. 

Resisting this attention economy, this constant pull to make us pay attention, means building a little boredom into our lives. 

Take a walk with your phone set to do-not-disturb mode. No music. No headphones. Just walk. 

Sit at your desk with a piece of paper and write whatever comes to mind. 

When our lives are not hinged on fast-moving external motivation or stimuli, we open ourselves up to the possibility of finding enjoyment in being bored, where original thinking gets the space to show itself. 

I’m not blind to the idealism in this idea. As I noted at the beginning, most people on this campus live ridiculously busy, high-pressure lives. 

But in the moments when things finally start to slow down after a busy day or week, at least trying to resist the pull right back into shallow amusement for just a few minutes can provide space for our own ideas, our own unique thoughts.

In the ever-present battle for our attention, the only way to achieve victory may be to change the rules of the game. 

Raj Ghanekar is a Medill senior. He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.