Here’s something I’ve noticed about my own behavior. And I don’t necessarily like it.

When I’m in a meeting or a conversation, I drift the moment things go on too long without something interesting. My mind wanders. My hand moves toward my phone. And I catch myself thinking: wait, what did they just say?

Have you felt this too?

I think it’s because of how we’ve been conditioned. Everything we consume has been optimized to hold our attention. TV shows, movies, social media, websites; all of it engineered for dopamine hits. Short, sharp, immediately rewarding.

No wonder we reach for our phones the second something gets slow or unclear.

The research backs this up. Two decades ago, the average time someone stayed focused on a single task was around two and a half minutes. Today that number has dropped to 47 seconds.

47 seconds.