Focus apps miss the neural mind, new research finds

In today’s attention economy, social media platforms, entertainment apps, and news feeds all compete for our attention.

Millions of people have turned to Focus apps to help them be more productive while studying or working. Some of these apps help us manage our attention by blocking distracting apps or websites.

Whether it’s growing a virtual tree in the forest or turning off social media with Apple Screen Time, the app promises to help us “take back control.”

Unfortunately, if you’re neurodiverse, these digital distraction blockers may actually make you feel worse, according to our recent research at the University of British Columbia.

Inflexible designs

Neurotic individuals, who make up 10 to 20 percent of the Canadian population, are individuals whose brains work differently than most. These include attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.

For post-secondary students, this percentage may be higher, as less than half choose to disclose their neuroticism – meaning that these focused apps fail to support a substantial population of users.

Although distraction blockers aim to help, we found that their inflexible designs often clash with the ways neurotic people think and focus. These apps fail to consider their unique strengths, such as hyperfocus, and can intentionally deepen feelings of shame and inadequacy around their ability to be productive.

Attention is not a pipe

Most distraction blockers believe there is a “right” way to focus: Set a specific time when distractions are blocked, sit quietly, and work promptly until the time is up. For example, the popular Pomodoro Technique encourages people to work in uninterrupted, distraction-free 25-minute blocks.

However, for many of the 27 neuroscience students we interviewed, focus doesn’t work like a faucet that can be turned on and off. Neurodivergent individuals may have difficulty organizing and executing tasks (executive dysfunction), perceive the passage of time (time blindness), or feel overwhelmed by busy environments (sensory overload)—all of which make initiating tasks and entering a state of focus particularly challenging.

At the same time, some students with ADHD described entering rare and hard-won states of hyperfocus, which took longer than the generally considered 25-minute focus block.

Some students shared concerns that focus timers create stress rather than relieve stress.

Digital Voting

Our most surprising finding was that some neuroscientists deliberately turned off their inhibitions to look at distractions.

Although a neuropsychological perspective would view this as a failure of willpower, it was an important self-regulation strategy for our research participants. We refer to this alternative way to focus as “digital stimming.”

Inspired by the repetitive and relaxing behaviors known as stimming often seen in the neuroscience community, digital stimming involves engaging with familiar, predictable digital content, such as a favorite YouTube clip or social media feed, to manage cognitive load and ease transitions to difficult tasks.

But disabling blockers comes with a catch: the same content that needs to be silenced can easily lead to doomscrolling. Existing distraction barriers provide no support for the middle ground.

The shame of a ‘crutch’

These frictions with their bloggers remind neuroscience students how differently their minds work. Many of our research participants said they often feel shame when they use distraction blockers, especially when they don’t meet their own standards for productivity or when they compare themselves to others.

One participant told us that the amount of time they can devote to apps like Forest pales in comparison.

Others worried about becoming dependent on inhibitors as a “crutch” and asked whether they should use these apps “for the rest of their lives.”

Reinforcement designs

If distraction blockers are to truly be inclusive and empowering for all users, we need to move away from the all-or-nothing approach of current tools. Our findings suggest three ways to re-imagine future distraction blockers:

1. Support curated digital streaming: Bloggers can provide familiar, sweet content that fits neatly into a specific time frame for digital steaming, helping users settle their minds without getting stuck in doomscrolling.

2. Use task-based rules on timers: Distractions can be blocked until a specific goal is reached (eg, “I’ve written two pages”) rather than setting arbitrary time limits to focus.

3. Use scaffolding, not crutches: Bloggers can be framed as a path to personalized growth and self-acceptance through affirmative language that normalizes fluctuating attention.

Focus apps are currently designed as if everyone’s mind works the same way, but they fail to help people with neurological differences. Focus apps should adapt to us, not the other way around.

With well-designed tools, we can empower people to focus without feeling guilty about needing support.

This article was co-authored by Marvel Hariyadi, a Bachelor of Business and Computer Science student at the University of British Columbia.