It's no secret that our attention span is shortening. We are constantly bombarded with information, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up.

I noticed I couldn't concentrate on my course videos a few days ago. As a result of constantly checking my phone, I was unable to learn anything. This made me wonder what was wrong with me; I hadn't always been like this.

I thought the course was difficult because I wasn't understanding the logic, so let's do some simple coding projects, but whenever I tried to solve a problem and was in the middle of thinking, I just unconsciously picked up my phone and started scrolling through Instagram reels, and half an hour has passed and I haven't done anything.

• And I became anxious and frustrated, thinking to myself, "This is not normal; there are millions of people using these apps; are they feeling the same way?" "What made these apps so addictive that we forgot about our work and scrolled mindlessly for hours?"*

Let us conduct extensive research on it.

All of these apps were created with the intention of connecting people; it was all good at first, but they began to make a profit after a while, and they now want us to spend more and more time on these platforms.

Because our attention is limited, these apps began using AI, and these AI constantly monitors you, and after collecting all of your data, they show you relevant posts and videos, and it becomes increasingly difficult not to see these videos.

We are all hustling in our lives, and when we open these apps, they show us someone parting and having fun, and this creates FOMO around us, so we spend even more time scrolling in search of funny and good videos, and after a while, we feel more anxious, and this loop continues, and we believe our lives are bad, and it has made us more sad and depressed.

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible,”

― Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

These apps improve their design on a daily basis. They started with a like button, then emojis, then small videos, and now they're shortening the time between these actions to 8 - 10 seconds. More updates are possible in the future.

According to a study, negative posts receive more attention than positive posts, for example, posts that compare two societies receive more attention, and people just start fighting in the comments, we tolerate less and become angry at small things.

The terrifying part is that these apps have the capability of controlling our society, our desires, our purchasing habits, our moods, and the majority of our decisions. We are the ones suffering the consequences of an attention war.

We can't stop it, but we can take precautions -

-Checking your phone first thing in the morning is not a good idea.

• Limit your time spent on these social media platforms.

• Disable all unnecessary notifications.

• putting away the phone while working

• Monitor the amount of time you spend on social media.