Stefan van der Stigchel is a professor in Cognitive Psychology at the department of Experimental Psychology at Utrecht University and principal investigator of the research group AttentionLab. For his research on visual attention, he received a VENI and VIDI NWO grant, and recently an ERC Consolidator Grant and VICI NWO grant. Stefan is author of the popular science book How Attention Works in January 2019. His second book Concentration: Staying Focused in Times of Distraction was released in the Netherlands in November 2018 and published by MIT Press in 2020. A third book, Grip op je aandacht [Grab Your Attention], was published in 2020. His books have further been translated into Russian, Korean, and Chinese.
Zan Boag: In your book, Concentration: Staying Focused in Times of Distraction, it’s interesting that in your prologue you write about how Seneca concluded more than 2,000 years ago that there was too much information out there – that “the abundance of information was becoming a major source of distraction”. This resurfaced in the 18th century when people in Germany spoke of a ‘plague of books’ and that the end result would be that people would struggle to concentrate. So, concerns about the amount of information are nothing new. But is it different this time? Is our ability to concentrate adversely affected by the sheer volume of information and distractions in contemporary society?
Stefan van der Stigchel: It’s good to start off by saying: there has always been too much information. When you walk outside in nature or when you are in your own house, there’s too much information around you to take in. Our brain can only process part of the information. That’s just a fundamental aspect of our brain: it has to select. That selection is something we call ‘attention’. What has changed is that the competition for our attention has increased massively.
Attention can only be allocated at one location at a time. This means that if somebody wants to convey a message to you, they have to attract your attention. What has changed is that a lot of people and companies have become aware of this fact and they also have gained access to something that’s really close to you, like your mobile phone, your laptop, or your tablet. This means that they are able to attract your attention a lot more.
This is different than when you are walking alone in the woods or when you don’t have your mobile phone with you – in those moments companies and institutions simply don’t have that same ability to attract your attention. So the amount of information around us has increased, but I think more importantly, so has the ability for others to capture your attention.
When you are carrying your mobile phone and you get a notification, the whole process that starts is mostly reflexive. In a busy city centre there’s not a lot you can
