Why it's getting harder to focus
I just watched another of NindaaFer’s videos, this one about why it’s getting harder for our brains to focus.
It turns out it’s not because our brains are weak. It’s because, without realizing it, we’ve “trained” them to always look for quick entertainment.
How we trained our brains
Think back to when you were a kid.
You’d watch TV for an hour or two without skipping anything. Read a book all the way to the end. Talk for ages without checking your phone.
And now? If a 30-second video gets boring, we skip it. Ten seconds waiting for the lift and the phone is already out.
Every day, our brains get trained on one rule: “If you’re even a little bored, go find some entertainment.”
The video explains dopamine. It’s not just a feel-good hormone. It’s a motivation signal.
Before, the reward came after a long stretch of effort. A task done, an exam passed, a project wrapped up. The brain learned to be patient.
Now it’s scroll a little → a funny 5-second video → swipe → again → again. The brain learns that “rewards have to come fast.”
That’s why five minutes into work you already want to check your phone. That’s not laziness. That’s a brain that’s been trained to ask for quick dopamine.
What wears our focus down
Three things make our focus drop:
- Focus rarely gets exercised. Everything can be skipped or sped up.
- The reward system keeps getting faster, from “satisfied after an hour” to “satisfied every five seconds.”
- The phone is always in your pocket, so empty time is never really empty.
It’s like a muscle that’s never been used for a long run. The longer it goes, the weaker it gets.
What makes it worse isn’t the big decisions. It’s the small habits:
- Standing in line → phone out.
- Waiting for a meeting → phone out.
- Stuck in traffic → phone out.
- Ten seconds of silence → phone out.
Slowly, the brain learns that “every pause is time for entertainment.”
I counted yesterday. It can happen dozens of times a day, without me even noticing.
Training it back
The good news: if the brain can be trained to love quick rewards, it can be retrained too.
Focus is mental stamina. It’s not a talent. And here’s how you train it.
Don’t always fill small pauses with your phone
Waiting for the lift, standing in line, right before a meeting: hold back the reflex to open your phone. You can think, daydream, or notice what’s around you.
This teaches the brain that “it’s okay to have empty space without an instant reward.”
Finish one thing without breaks
Work for 25–30 minutes without switching tabs and without checking WhatsApp or Instagram. Watch one video without scrolling at the same time.
The brain learns that “the reward can come at the end. It doesn’t have to come in the middle.”
When you start getting bored, don’t switch right away
If you’re reading and it starts to get heavy, keep going for a few more minutes. If you’re working and you get stuck, stay there. Don’t run off to the timeline.
This trains the brain to get through the “not fun yet, the payoff comes later” phase.
Reset if you need to
If it’s gotten bad, cut back on or temporarily stop the apps that give you the fastest dopamine: TikTok, Reels, Shorts.
Replace them with things whose reward is slower but still enjoyable: reading a book, walking, exercising.
This lowers your dopamine “threshold,” so ordinary activities don’t feel as bland as they used to.
What I took from it
Our focus problem isn’t because our brains are bad. It’s because our environment is full of instant rewards.
Every time we fill a small pause with scrolling, we strengthen the habit of impatience. For me, small daily habits help more than big intentions.
Watch the full video on NindaaFer’s YouTube channel (in Indonesian). It’s really worth watching slowly.