Attention spans are shortening and ADHD awareness is increasing. Should we do church differently?

You’ve arrived at the 6:30pm service at St Mungo’s, the final act of the kind of weekend that sends you back to work for a rest. You’ve spent the last 48 hours in a whirlwind of social engagements, sports fixtures and life admin – with more than a sprinkling of screen time thrown in. Your brain is tired, your body is yearning for the sweet release of sleep, but you love the Lord, and you’re committed to your church community…so here you are.

The worship leader is a subscriber to the belief that you haven’t really sung a song unless you’ve done the verses twice, the bridge six times and the chorus to the point of rote learning. The speaker, a man who has spent his entire week researching and listening to God about the passage, is determined to communicate everything he’s learned. The woman doing the prayers is also a frustrated preacher, so manages to squeeze in a not-so miniature sermon of her own before she prays.

As the 90 minutes slogs on, you become aware of three things. First, that you’re in a room full of people who never sit still and listen to this kind of one-way communication for this long at any other point in their week. Second, that your tired brain and body are experiencing an increasing mix of frustration and exhaustion as the service drags on. Third, it’s not just you: all around the room, people have checked out, become distracted, lost their grip on the latest element of this seemingly neverending experience. In fact…is anyone even listening?

Non-identical twins

I’m exaggerating to make a point; of course, your church is a lot more engaging than St Mungo’s. Yet I’d be confident that however slick – or brief – your services are, there are still plenty of people who find them hard; perhaps even excruciating. That’s because our relationship with focus and attention has fundamentally changed, and also because there are people in our midst whose brains are wired in ways we’re only now beginning to understand. How did we get here? 

Two distinct phenomena may be contributing to this picture of distraction and disengagement, and they are readily and unhelpfully conflated. The first is that due to a whole range of factors, including the way we use technology, many – if not all of us – are experiencing a reduction in our attention spans. 

We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about self-discipline and technology use – as long as we recognise those who have a medical basis for their struggles

The second is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a real medical condition experienced by around four per cent of the UK’s adult population (according to The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE). They are not the same thing, and we will look at them separately. 

Hustle and flow

“I have undiagnosed ADHD.” Have you heard that phrase in the last few years? Because of a rise in awareness and understanding of the condition – which has historically been most often observed and diagnosed in children – many adults are either seeking a later-life diagnosis or indeed diagnosing themselves due to their identification with a number of ADHD’s tell-tale signs. Suddenly, talk of ADHD is commonplace.

ADHD is a neurological, behavioural condition that affects the way a person experiences and interacts with everyday life. Research suggests that there are small but significant differences in the brains of people with the condition and this affects their ability to concentrate and sustain focus, control impulses and maintain an organised and ordered life. This means that everyday tasks – which might normally be taken for granted but require a degree of focused attention – such as tidying up, or filling in a form, become unappealing, difficult or even painful.

But if you have ADHD, it’s not all bad news. Research from Japan suggests that ADHD brains become counterintuitively calm in a crisis, and are often creative and intuitive. Perhaps most significantly – and surprisingly – they’re also prone to hyper-focus once they get ‘in the zone’. People with ADHD can find themselves losing all sense of time while locked in a state of immense productivity and peak performance that the celebrated but hard-to-pronounce psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called a “flow state”.

Yet there are numerous challenges that come with the condition, many of which can make engagement in church life more difficult. The three key symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity can create numerous obstacles. A person with ADHD may exist in a near-constant sense of restlessness and experience a desire to move and change focus, which can make church services feel like torture. They may struggle to make good decisions, and choose immediate rewards over future consequences, which can lead to difficult discipleship conversations and feelings of shame. Here’s the really important thing to remember, though: while these behaviours are not forced upon them, they are made much more difficult to resist by ADHD. We need to develop grace for people experiencing this kind of neurodivergence.

The fragmented mind

There’s another phenomenon at work, however, and on the surface, it looks head-scratchingly similar to the one I’ve just outlined. In his landmark book The Anxious Generation (Penguin), American sociologist Jonathan Haidt outlines the “four foundational harms” he perceives emerging as a result of prolonged smartphone use, particularly among younger people. Alongside sleep deprivation, addiction and limited social interactions, Haidt raises concerns about what he calls “attention fragmentation”; the idea that our brains are literally being rewired by technology to continually seek novelty and embrace distraction.

This phenomenon was foretold by Christian mystic Richard Foster, who wrote in his 2011 book Sanctuary of the Soul (Hodder & Stoughton) that: “distraction is the primary spiritual problem in our day”. And in the 40th anniversary reissue of his classic Celebration of Discipline, he added: “Frankly, when we are perpetually distracted, we are unable to discern the Kol Yahweh, the voice of the Lord.” If that’s true, it’s a very serious problem indeed.

For many of us, this epidemic of “attention fragmentation” isn’t rooted in a diagnosed behavioural condition, but in the way that we have been conditioned by technology – and not just the smartphone. Silicon Valley is actively engaged in what Haidt calls “a race to the bottom of the brain stem”, where dopamine addiction is cultivated and brain function hijacked for the sake of tech companies’ financial gain. The sheer breadth of choice offered by streaming services means we’re able to jump around between media and platforms like never before, and while channel-hopping is nothing new, the phenomenon of dual or even triple-screening is. Watching one show on TV, while gaming on an iPad and checking social media on a phone is fundamentally shifting our expectations of how time is spent and ordered. This is, by the way, not only the way that teenagers behave; people of all ages are packing two or three times the content into times of supposed relaxation. But whether they’re deriving any real pleasure or meaning from any of it is up for debate.

This is not ADHD…but the behaviour and its impacts can look similar. Those of us who have been overloading on content or scrolling mindlessly through social media for hours on end can experience those same profound problems with attention and focus. Back to that phrase: “I have undiagnosed ADHD.” Of course, that’s possibly true, but it should be determined by a medical professional, rather than a survey you found on the internet. A medical condition and an issue of self-discipline have become conflated, and it’s important that we learn to tell them apart. Because for some of us, the answer to this challenge doesn’t lie behind a label or even medication, but a grown-up discipleship decision to get our relationship with technology under control.

The flip side is that because many people who suspect they have the condition never actually seek a proper diagnosis, many health professionals believe the true number of people experiencing ADHD is significantly higher than the NICE estimate. This means that, practically speaking, we have very little idea of the cause of attention issues in our church. For that reason, I would propose we show grace to everyone who is struggling to focus and openly encourage those who believe they have ADHD to seek a proper diagnosis. At the same time, we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about self-discipline and technology use as discipleship issues – as long as we demonstrate a recognition of those who might have a medical basis for their struggles.

Be still and know

I’ve managed to get this far without making a confession: I’m currently on an NHS waiting list for a consultation around suspected ADHD. Over the course of writing this article, I have oscillated between hyper-focus and periods of intrusive random thoughts and distraction. I’m therefore a perfect case study of my main point: that pragmatically it doesn’t really matter if the people in our churches are suffering from a medical condition or are a sign of the times. It may affect how we attempt to offer discipleship guidance but, in the end, our job is to lead others to God, not judge them for their struggles. 

We are in an age of distraction. Richard Foster had it absolutely right – this issue is a fundamental challenge to our individual and collective ability to hear and discern the still, small voice of God. Instead of stigmatising or criticising ourselves or each other, there’s plenty that we can do to mitigate, lessen and even in some cases embrace attention-deficit. “Be still,” wrote the sons of Korah, “and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). It’s a hard verse for a distracted generation to read, but one we can still hope to fulfil if we bear with, understand and help each other.