In 2004, an office worker could sit with a single task for roughly two and a half minutes before glancing away. Today, that same worker lasts an average of 47 seconds before switching his or her attention, according to a 2023 University of California study that documented over two decades of workplace observation.
The change is also noticeable in daily life, not just in the office. Haneen Ibrahim, 21, a university student, notices the change when she tries to undertake a task she once found easy.
“I used to be able to read a book for hours on end. I used to be so bored that I would pick up a pencil and start drawing,” Ibrahim said. “Now when I try to do that, I feel restless and impatient.”
The University of California study, drawn from field studies that began in 2003 using stopwatches and clipboards and evolved into large-scale digital tracking, has become a shorthand for a broader affliction, which is the erosion of follow-through.
In an age full of interruption, staying focused for an hour or two on one task, be it reading a book, engaging in conversation, watching a film, or other, has become an act of resistance.
For some, that difficulty shows up in the tasks they leave unfinished.
Ibrahim has started four books in the last year and has not finished one. She either finds them boring or becomes too impatient to continue.
Omar Hazem, 24, a junior marketing executive in Cairo, sees the same pattern in his own life. He has started numerous television series and abandoned most of them, and once began learning Spanish through an app before eventually giving it up.
“I think I like starting things more than actually sticking with them,” he said.
Before the world became accessible, readily, on phones, boredom used to serve a purpose. It was the blank space where a book could hold your attention for three hours, where a film could earn its slow opening scene, where a mind, left alone for even a few minutes, would wander somewhere or think of something new to do. Now that blank space feels almost unbearable.
Hazem noted how waiting has become difficult for him. Left to his own devices, he automatically reaches for his phone. “I don’t really know how to wait anymore,” he said.
Ibrahim remembers boredom differently. She remembers boredom making her come up with ways to occupy her time
“I would start coming up with things to do, making up games and just generally getting creative,” she said.
According to the University of California, social media platforms are steadily lowering people’s tolerance for the boredom that focus requires. The paper describes this effect as an “internal whiteboard” that gets erased and rewritten every time attention jumps, and it has a cognitive cost that compounds with each switch.
The phone is never more than an arm’s length away, offering a faster, easier hit of stimulation than whatever slower thing is in front of us. The muscle people once used to sit with something undramatic has quietly atrophied, and every ping, scroll, and notification makes it a little weaker.
The attraction is partly the speed of that stimulation, according to Ibrahim.
“I think I got used to the swift gratification of watching a short reel after another,” she said.
Hazem shared the same sentiment at work. He can spend an hour scrolling through TikTok without thinking about it, but if he has to read a 20-page report, he would start checking his phone after five minutes.
According to 2023 research by psychologist Gloria Mark, half of all screen-attention spans last less than 40 seconds and, once interrupted, it takes roughly 25 minutes to return to the original task.
The interruptions can become so habitual that they are difficult to notice. Ibrahim said she switches between tasks “every couple of minutes.” Even while working, she finds herself reaching for her phone, switching tabs or getting up to grab a snack.
“Even when I am working, I find it hard to lock in,” she said.
In Egypt, that tension is visible as smartphone adoption has outpaced almost every other shift in daily life over the past decade. By early 2025, 50.7 million Egyptians, making up 43.1 percent of the population, were active social media users, up from 40 percent the year before, according to the “Digital 2025: Egypt” report from DataReportal.
Egyptian users now spend close to three hours a day, 180 minutes, on social platforms, well above the global average of 141 to 143 minutes a day, a 2026 systematic review published in BMC Psychology reports.
A separate study of medical students at Tanta University reports a pattern of continuous distraction, where a fear of missing out and smartphone dependence were closely tied to lower life satisfaction, suggesting the compulsion to check a feed is often less about curiosity than anxiety over disconnection.
That anxiety can make even a short period without a phone feel uncomfortable. Hazem said that if he were separated from his phone for three hours, he would probably spend the first part wondering what he was missing.
“The scary part is that I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself at first,” he said.
For Salma Ahmed, 31, an architect in Alexandria, that feeling used to be familiar. She spent years filling small gaps in her day with her phone, watching videos while eating or getting ready and reaching for it whenever she had to wait.
After deleting TikTok for several months, she began noticing how often she had been using her phone simply to avoid being alone with her thoughts.
“At first, I hated it,” she said. “If I was waiting for someone, I felt like I needed to fill the silence.”
Eventually, she began leaving her phone in her bag when she went out and found herself more comfortable not reaching for it.
Cutting phone-based internet use for just two weeks can reverse roughly a decade’s worth of cognitive decline, a 2025 study by PNAS NEXUS, a scientific journal, reports.
Ahmed said that reducing her social media use also changed the way she approached other interests. Before, she would see someone painting online and suddenly want to paint, then see someone making pottery and want to try that instead.
“I was constantly consuming other people’s interests instead of developing my own,” she noted.
People have not become incapable of focus or following through. It is merely an automatic, habitual switching driven by notifications and a fast-paced life that, under the right conditions, be it more autonomy over schedules or practicing sitting with discomfort rather than reaching for relief, can be reversed.
Ibrahim is not convinced that being without her phone would be easy. She thinks three hours without it would probably leave her feeling uneasy, but she also thinks something else might happen.
She said, “I think if I were separated from my phone for three hours, I would probably be restless, but it would help me be creative again.”
