Bound for Utter Scatter: A case for developing attention hierarchies
How some of us have built in capacity for regulating flooded attention and why with algorithmic attention hoarding, we all need it.
If you’ve ever said, “That kid just can’t focus. My spouse just can’t focus. I just can’t focus.,” this message is for you.
We’re in a time where focus has gone from a useful tool to our generation’s hottest commodity. Companies, podcasters, and platforms are paying for our attention…and getting paid for it.
The goal of these article’s are to shed light on our unique minds, and use sharp inquiry to explore its strengths. This includes neurodivergent minds, the swell of neurodiversity-aware allies and everyone with a brain. (Note: As of this writing, a newly elected New York mayor, Mamdani, has declared in his inaugural speech that “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” In the meantime, shall we continue onward into the delights of that rugged terrain.)
I have bad news. The attention pulls aren’t just happening for diagnosed persons with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Experts can tell us the extent to which something falls outside what is considered normal. I’m here to discuss the impact of societal monetization of attention stealing and its impact on our collective consciousness. I’m here to remind you that if you advance in time, scale, and efficiency, most people will succumb to utter-scattered-ness. But a person with ADD may have mastered a currently not well discussed ability: attention hierarchy in a sea of stimuli. I’ll explain what I mean. (P.S. You should watch the movie Blindness)
The daily grind of seeking dopamine plus infinite scroll plus browser tab technology plus QR code menus you can’t navigate away from plus the perpetual cart (I could go on) has had an impact on what people perceive is the socially acceptable amount of thoughts you should hold in your head at one time.
“Research in 2025 confirms that digital environments, especially short-form video platforms, continue to fragment human attention, with average online attention spans dropping to around 8 seconds.” (https://sqmagazine.co.uk/social-media-attention-span-statistics/#:~:text=Editor’s%20Choice,by%20the%2010%2Dsecond%20mark.)
I’d like to report that the real world, offline, unplugged, “analog girl in a digital world” is just as slow as ever. Reading is excruciating some days and I want to take a second to acknowledge that I’m lucky you’ve stayed with me this far into the article. The gap between that social security number length confirmation number at the end of a transaction and when your item, ticket, delivery arrives is filled with 20 potential and 2 actual things going wrong, all swirling about in your head. Pulling up QR code tickets and multi-factor verifications at checkout are careful, delicate executions in comparison to the robust act of executing a task online. This is our brains doing a task at least twice, and has a massive cognitive load. I guess I should stop teasing my mom for going to the store to find out their holiday hours.
But, let’s focus this conversation on the student, as many of my articles have done and I believe at least some of you are here for. Many students with ADHD are focusing on everything. They are actively flattening input across multiple senses, scanning for threat or novelty, tracking movement, tone, shifts in energy, and trying to assign value to every stimulus. And in reality, someone may be standing in front of them, or on a screen, asking them to commit to one worksheet, one voice, one pace. Imagine telling them they aren’t paying attention.
Understandably, that might look like a lack of attention. But I assure you that’s the premium feature edition of distributed attention navigating a system that only rewards and develops narrow focus. 20 years into the future, someone at some job, coffee shop, date, will be expecting them to hold multiple thoughts in their head.
You may be thinking, that’s not how it’s showing up in my child. And I’m now sensitive to this habit of romanticizing other’s experiences in a way that devalues lived challenges. I think both things can be true: someone can be learning how to properly utilize an innate raw skill, while showing little sign of that future potential. So what if we flipped the script?
What if ADHD wasn’t only a challenge to manage, but a lens. What if that lens helps us see how focus is shaped by biology, environment, and culture, not just effort or willpower? What if we realized it’s not always clear what the most important thing is they should be paying attention to.
Here’s what the experts say we understand more clearly now:
Neurological Regulation
ADHD brains often show differences in dopamine regulation and inconsistent blood flow in areas tied to executive function, including the frontal lobe.
Translation: Prioritizing, planning, initiating, and completing tasks aren’t intuitive. They’re effortful. Often exhausting.
Working approach: Exercises around energy routing. This might mean releasing tension that you might not see, this might mean having students voicing what is the most important thing or what’s using up most of their energy right now. This might mean instead of telling them what they should be expending energy on, asking them why they think something is important.
Social–Emotional Regulation
Attention is deeply relational. Co-regulation with those tall people (Adults) parents, teachers, authority figures and the little people too, shapes how students stabilize, persist, and re-engage.
Translation: Disruptions in connection often show up as disruptions in behavior. (Ex. social standings in flux, misjudged intentions, not fitting in)
Working approach: Finding words for the relational load (ex. Listing what’s for homework, and what relationship challenges are taking up thinking space, who made funny faces at you today that you didn’t understand)
Attention in the Age of Algorithms
The very traits we label as ADHD like task-switching, skimming, novelty-seeking, are now being trained into all of us through digital tools and algorithmic feeds but toward the benefit of the algorithm.
Translation: Focus isn’t just neurological, it’s now cultural.
Working approach: Read the research on screen-time for kiddos (it’s scary) and also unplug ourselves sometimes. The incorporation of AI dulls some of our natural mental gymnastics. Have ADD students coach single focus non-multitaskers to help them build that skill.
Some Classroom Implementations:
Instead of forcing neurodiverse students to conform to narrow definitions of focus, classrooms can borrow from what already works for them:
Challenges your own thinking about what “smart” kids can do, how long they hold focus or how compliant they are.
Break work into micro-goals as a demonstration for students to master for themselves.
Build in novelty, movement, and sensory shifts. This will help you detect what is slighted toward the one definition of focus.
Allow flexible timelines where possible. I hear about parents advocating for more time as an accommodation, which itself won’t really address it. But more check-ins for some students, and soft deadlines that they don’t know until after the due date will help stair step them into that goal.
Use visual and auditory anchors, not just verbal instruction.
Redefine focus as selective engagement, not silence or stillness.
These might seem like they’ll take more time, but asking students to repeat back what they heard, providing hierarchy of existing stimuli (bell, peer conversation, your assignment, written notes) meets them halfway.
My hope is that people don’t look at this as lowering standards. I hope instead that you see this as changing the access point in a way that might benefit all the students instead of a few.
Before asking, “Will this student ever get it?”
Try asking, “What kind of focus am I rewarding and what type of focus does it leave out?”
You have a few months, maybe a year, to leave a lasting impact on a mind that is deciding if they have a “good” mind or not. They might be asking is it worth it, Am I hard to teach? Are this classroom’s offerings more important than regulating my emotions or social interactions? If you’re a teacher, or parent, you are likely committed to doing the one thing that will make a difference.
I don’t think this is one student’s unique problem. I believe there are levels to this thing. If you’ve read this far, maybe you do as well.
Want a glimpse into the experience
This is a link to a multi-sensory scene. I’ve done 3 levels. When I’ve had non-ADD adults watch this, they are overwhelmed very quickly. When they stand there a minute longer, and give me that look like, what’s the big deal, I silently smile at a mind reflective of my own.
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Reach out if you’d like to give feedback on a game demo I’ve worked with developers on that strengthens these skills. Here’s my Calendly link: https://calendly.com/ripefruit