You might just have to be bored

Or: How to fix an attention span.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

This is the year you’re gonna do it! Really! —Kate

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A whole cottage industry has emerged around getting people off their phones. And while there are self-help books and IRL digital detoxes that literally lock your phone away from you, you’re most likely to come across this stuff … online. People who scroll social media are obviously the target audience for this content, but phone apps and phone content for getting off your phone are a lot like sustainability brands that promise to fix overconsumption with yet another product: I think you guys just want my money.

Nevertheless, whether it’s viral TikToks, time-limiting and distraction apps, or YouTube video essays, people are hungry for content that contains the secret to not consuming content. We saw this last week when Emma Weaver became the main character for tweeting about her worsening attention span: “it’s hard for me to read books, my memory is horrible and it’s hard to retain information, i miss reading but i literally can’t read. I feel so stupid? what do i do.”

Thousands of people quote-tweeted her to let her know her phone was to blame, which was not actually an answer to her question. As someone who has made plenty of contributions to the getting-off-your-phone content industry, I can confidently say that the real solution is not that complicated. There’s no theory to learn or science to practice. You don’t have to do anything to fix your attention span.