Do you have trouble concentrating? Are you finding yourself dropping everything to respond to a text, see what that ping notification was, or address the quiet rumble coming from your phone? Then it might be too late if you’re over the age of 25.
New York University professor and psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt, was recently on The Oprah Podcast to discuss the ever-growing problem of concentration among young people due to their phone use. Haidt claims that habitual phone usage and social media has harmed teenagers and young people’s ability to focus and concentrate, two important skills that are necessary in any profession. “These things are designed to interrupt you,” he explained.
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A 2021 report showed that teenagers aged 13 to 18 spent an average of eight hours and 39 minutes per day on screens. Another report from 2023 showed that teens check their phones over 100 times daily to address an average of 240 notifications they receive daily. This leads to breaks of concentration and prolongs tasks, even enjoyable ones such as watching movies, playing games, or enjoying a meal with friends. But it might not be too late.
“It is urgent that you restore your brain,” said Dr. Haidt. “By 25, the frontal cortex is kind of done changing. … At that point, it’s going to be much harder to get your attention back.” Note that if you’re over the age of 25, Haidt said that changing and restoring your brain’s concentration would be “harder” but not impossible.
So what does the doctor recommend? “I would recommend going cold turkey [from social apps] for a month, if you can,” said Haidt.
He says, “The way to get out of a social trap is together.” He recommends finding three or more friends and family members to shut off or remove their social media apps from their phones for a month, for a greater chance for everyone involved to succeed.
He also recommends providing substitute activities whenever the urge to check their phone becomes too much to bear. He recommends replacing scrolling on your phone to watching a movie all the way through, writing in a handwritten journal, exercising, reading a paperback book, and essentially doing analog activities. If you did have three other friends or family members join you on your social media fast, you could do activities with them like going out for coffee or making a meal together.
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But even after a month away from social media, it's recommended that you change your relationship with it if you reinstall the apps on your phone. Curate your social media feeds and unfollow accounts of folks who aren’t close friends, family, or coworkers. Set up a time per day with a time limit to check on your social media and ignore notifications until that time frame. You can also create “no social media zones” such as your workplace, school, or areas in the home (“No phones at the dinner table,” for example). This can not only help you rebuild concentration and focus over time, but is just psychologically healthier for you overall.
If you’re under 25, it’s not too late to make the changes before your brain cements the harmful habits of extended phone use. If you’re older, it’s still worth a try. Either way, it’s a worthwhile attempt to improve your overall life if you’re struggling.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.