'Weird and Daunting': 7k Readers Told Us How It Felt to Focus

> You might think of this chart as the shape of attention. After clicking to start, thousands rapidly exited, some immediately, some after a minute or two. But if you could make it past three minutes, you were more likely to finish than to give up. And once you hit five minutes, your odds of completing the exercise were very high. A quarter who started made it to the 10-minute mark.

This is interesting but the whole experiment is completely undermined by the fact that one cannot choose the painting, or at least choose from a list of paintings. Personally I clicked through to see what it was, then left after 10s because I didn't like what I found. I do like impressionism but not the out of focus and "about to go blind" cataract kind, which actually gives me a headache. For me at least, a blank wall would be preferable to a fogged up scene, assuming a 10 minute timer and a computer screen.

I didn't see any breakdown by age and I was wondering if people who grew up without phones had an easier time of it.

I can sit down for 30 minutes outside on my porch with my phone inside and just look at the trees. It's calming and not difficult at all.

Many of the responses mention meditation, which I think is exactly what this is. With meditation we usually think of certain ways of managing our thoughts or breath or using some sort of mantra (I've never tried that last one), but I think any exercise that is challenging our ability to focus is functioning as mediation.

It also reminded me of "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" which is one of four Roald Dahl stories that Wes Anderson made into short films for Netflix.

This is only tangential, but Adam Gazzaley's The Distracted Mind (2016, MIT Press) provides an excellent anatomy of focus and attention, working memory, goal management and overall cognitive control, then places them in the context of modern technology to discuss how people can fight distraction.

https://www.amazon.com/Distracted-Mind-Ancient-Brains-High-T...

It's the first time I read someone properly explain all the parts and tasks involved in attentional control in the service of achieving goals.

I tried this exercise just after finishing the article. Feels silly to say, but really a remarkable experience.

I recently left tech to go back to school, but the program that I got into is very different than what I had envisioned.

As I reflected on this recent negative event, my perception changed in those ten minutes, reframing the challenge as an opportunity.

The test appears to have been implemented as a JavaScript button with a timer.

How many people would have simply set a timer for 10 minutes, then wait for a bit and return to the page to see if they had won a prize?

I would be interested in knowing what a fMRI would show and also how it affects people's bodily sensations/nervous system. Why is it so hard for some people?

They should ask people who meditate. They study the act of focusing a lot. Have special names for various depths of it and such.

I have ADHD, and this was not particularly difficult on it's own, but two observations do come to mind.

1) Ironically, medication might have made this harder than it otherwise would have been.

2) The worst part of the experience was trying to ignore the guiding prompts that only stopped by about a minute in. It felt like my manager checking in on Slack for an update on something I'm totally locked in on, and that alone made me want to quit, but thankfully they did stop. I'd also compare it to hearing some chew food with their mouth open while I'm trying to program or read. Have some fucking manners NYT

Am I a bad person for starting this exercise, then immediately alt-tabbing over to type this comment into HN? (The counter appears to still run when the window is not in focused.)