“Our main finding in this study was that, interestingly, older adults [focus on] relevant information as well as 20-year-olds. Where older adults suffered a deficit was in suppressing the irrelevant information…We discovered that their main attentional issue was that they are more distractible than younger adults.”
The book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World features some interesting observations about attention — specifically that our ability to pay attention actually relies on two different skills.
Those skills are enhancement (the ability to focus on things that matter) and suppression (the ability to ignore things that don’t).
In this post, Nir Eyal digs into the book’s findings and suggests ways to eliminate distractions and improve your focus including to play video games and avoid multitasking.
For more tips about focus, you can check out my own suggested eight ways to improve your focus.