Be honest, how many times have you checked your phone today?
The average person checks their phone more than 100 times a day.
What does that do to us?
I'm your host Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
The best place to practice your English listening skills while learning English.
New English vocabulary.
I am delighted that you can join me today for today's episode.
I think it's a very relevant episode which I hope will be useful to you to learn some new vocabulary.
It's a topic that I have been thinking about a lot recently, because I have noticed that I am using my phone a lot.
Often in the evening times or when I first wake up, I'm checking my phone and I can easily lose 20 minutes here and there from scrolling on Instagram or some other app.
And it's not that especially or particularly that I want to talk about.
It's more the effect of this.
We often think that we are simply passing the time, But this constant switching between one thing to another has a dangerous effect on our brains.
In fact, there's some evidence that shows that it could be destroying our attention spans, our focus.
And as time goes on, focus is becoming a bit of a superpower more of a rare ability.
So today, let's take a look at our key vocabulary that is going to help you to be prepared for today's topic and enable you to be able to talk about phone use, focus and attention in English.
Okay, so Our first word that I want you to listen for today is an adjective, and it is the word cognitive cognitive, cognitive.
And cognitive means relating to the mental processes, such as memory, perception and judgment.
So really relating to your brain, the processes in your brain.
So we have cognitive ability, for example.
That's like the ability of your brain to do certain things.
Let's go for our second phrase for today, our second word, and that is fragment, and we're going to learn the verb version to fragment.
And to fragment means to break something into separate, small or incomplete parts.
So if our focus is fragmented, If we fragment our focus, it's in lots of little parts.
We can't focus for a long time.
Our third word today, it's quite a difficult one.
It's actually quite hard to say.
Habituation.
Habituation.
So you can almost see that it's split into a couple of different words here.
So the first keyword in this word is habit.
So something which we do regularly.
And then, if we take the full word here, habituation.
This is the process of getting used to something.
So usually a stimulus or maybe a feeling in the brain.
So habituation is that process of getting used to something, and then you get used to it and you don't notice it.
An example of habituation is when we pick up our phone and we check our phones without even noticing or realizing that we are doing it.
Our fourth word for today's episode is superficial.
Superficial.
This is an adjective, a really great word that I think is very useful in a number of topics.
And superficial, when something is superficial, it is existing or occurring at the surface.
So it lacks depth.
It isn't too deep.
Sometimes people describe other people as superficial.
So it means that person's character does not have much depth to it.
And our final word for today's episode is a verb and it is to reclaim.
To reclaim.
And to reclaim something means to take back or recover something that that was lost or taken away.
Okay, so those were our words, our key vocabulary for today's episode.
They were quite difficult words, so don't be stressed or upset if you couldn't understand them all, because you will hear them more in today's episode.
Remember.
If you would like to hear more Easy English episodes and support the show, as well as getting access to our vocabulary, flip cards and full transcripts that you can read for each episode, you can become an Easy English Patreon member.
The link is in the description below.
You can sign up and support the podcast.
It helps me to keep making these episodes and to improve the quality each week.
Thank you to each and every one of our Easy English Patreon members for supporting the show.
I really couldn't do it without you and I appreciate your support.
Okay, let's go to the rest of our episode.
So think about how you consumed media maybe 10 years ago or, if you're a little bit younger, five years ago.
And compare it to today.
Today everything is shorter, it's faster, and it's a lot louder.
We've gone from books to articles, from videos to short clips and from paragraphs to single sentences, and often some very catchy, or what we call clickbait sentences.
And this environment that we live in, this technological environment of fast and quick, it has conditioned or trained our minds to expect instant entertainment.
When you sit down to read a book or an English book maybe, or to listen to a long form audio, people find that they get a lot more bored a lot faster than they did before.
Why?
Because it isn't getting a quick reward.
You aren't getting a fast reward from the activity.
The reward takes longer, primarily because the content is longer as well.
And this is where, during that boredom, that this habit of habituation kicks in.
Your hand moves towards your phone automatically when you're standing waiting in a line or you're waiting on something to happen.
You're looking for a distraction.
You're avoiding boredom or quietness, like a settled period in your day.
But by allowing your day to be fragmented into lots of little notifications and distractions, You are increasing this process of habituation with your phone, and conditioning or another word for conditioning here is training your brain to have a short attention span, short time of focus.
Okay, so I'm going to ask you to focus and do one thing for me, if you can focus, and make sure that you are following and subscribed to the Easy English Podcast.
And if you've already done that, make sure that you've turned on your notifications so that you don't miss an episode.
It's a little bell icon on our podcast page.
And while you're at it, why not leave a five-star rating, which will help show this podcast to lots of other English language learners?
Okay, now that I've had your focus, let's keep that focus and continue with our topic.
So what happens to our language learning ability if we keep breaking our focus when we're trying to learn?
Perhaps you're trying to listen to this podcast, or maybe you're doing an English lesson, but you're constantly distracting yourself in the process with your phone or another device or something that keeps popping up, taking your attention.
Well, to really improve your language, you'll have noticed that when you study, you need something that is often referred to now as deep work.
Most of your time of improvement.
A lot of it will come from deep work or when you get that feeling that you're really deeply connecting or engaging with the content or with the learning that you're doing.
And this is the state where your brain builds some very strong connections.
And that helps you to remember what you're learning a lot better into the future.
It makes the connections stronger.
And it means that this isn't going into just your short term memory, but into the long term as well.
But when you check your phone mid-sentence, you cause what is known as what we call attention residue.
Oh, that's a complicated phrase.
What does it actually mean?
It means that even after you put your phone down, a part of your mind or your brain is still thinking about what you've just looked at.
So when you get distracted and you read a text message or a notification and you go back to the activity that you were doing before, part of your brain is still focused on that distraction, that thing which took your focus.
And this applies to everything, not just English language learning and not just work.
It applies to maybe a hobby or activities. activity, anything that you're learning.
And when you get that distraction and you're back to it again, your learning can become temporarily quite superficial.
So it's not so deep. because you're distracted.
Part of your brain is focused on other things.
And later you might recognize what you were learning.
But because you lacked that deep cognitive focus during the learning or the study phase, your brain won't be able to really deeply remember it in detail.
And, of course, to be honest, speaking from experience, it's just really annoying when you're not controlling your own focus and your ability to focus on doing something.
And I'm sure we've all had times where we feel like we have a lot of distractions in our lives, whether it's from technology like this phone, whether it's from other things that are going on that we're thinking about in the back of our head.
But it really does show us that focus is so important.
It's something that's important to build and something that's important that we take back from our devices.
And that's exactly what the next part of our episode is about.
We're going to talk about reclaiming your focus.
How to reclaim your focus back from your phone or other things.
And I've got three special tips on how to do that.
But first, let's look at our listener spotlight.
So this is my favorite part of the show.
It's where I read your answers to my questions.
Every week, if you're new to the show, I ask a question related to the topic and I ask you to, And from last week's episode, I had very few answers at the time that I'm recording this.
So what I'm going to do is give some more time on last week's question for that episode.
And I'm going to ask you a question related to focus.
I want you to try and answer today in the comments, wherever you're listening.
I want you to answer what distracts you.
So what takes your focus?
Is it your phone?
Is it notifications?
Is it Other things that are going on?
Perhaps you are always aware of tasks or things in the back of your head that you have to do.
Tell me what distracts you, what takes your focus away.
I look forward to reading your answers next week.
Okay, let's get back to our topic today.
And we're going to look at reclaiming your focus.
And then we're going to look at some comprehension questions to see how well you understood today's topic.
Okay, so you really don't need to throw away your phone in order to fix your attention.
You just need to build some digital boundaries that help protect your mental energy.
And when I started to look online about some tips on how to, you know, maybe reduce the amount of distraction that we have from devices and from phones.
There are so many pieces of advice.
So I've decided to pick five.
I've decided to pick three of these that I believe are good pieces of advice.
The first is very simple and it's called out of sight.
Out of sight.
This means we can't see it.
And what the studies show on this topic is that simply having your phone on the desk next to you, even if it's switched off, reduces your cognitive capacity.
It reduces your brain's ability to work, basically, because you're aware that it's there.
Your brain is spending active energy trying to resist or reduce the temptation to touch it or pick it up and look at.
So when you're doing something, when you're listening to a podcast or you're learning, put your phone away.
Get it out of sight.
So somewhere where you can't see it.
I'm going to do that right now because I was using the phone to show you, but now I am aware that it is on the desk.
You could put it in a drawer or another room, just somewhere.
You can't see it out of sight and out of your mind.
Our second piece of advice that I've seen online is the 20 minute focus block.
And I think this is a really sensible piece of advice.
It's basically saying, stop trying to focus for hours at a time.
Split it into smaller 20 minute blocks.
Your brain, especially in the modern world, is not really built to focus for hours and hours at that time.
So set yourself 20 minutes to start with and challenge yourself that for those 20 minutes you're only going to do one thing.
You're going to focus on that one thing reading a book, writing a paragraph, answering a question, recording a podcast or something that you need to get done Whenever your timer ends or you realize that you've started to get distracted after 20 minutes, take a break and do something else, but don't look at your phone.
I think setting the expectations lower, you'll probably achieve more than the 20 minutes, but it makes it so much easier having that lower target, and that can apply to a lot of things.
The next really great point is turning off non-human notifications.
So we get lots of notifications on our phones.
You can actually check.
If you're on iPhone, for example, and you're in your screen time, you can look at what notifications and things that you've been getting during the day, what's causing you to pick up your phone, and you can turn them off, the ones that you don't need.
So we don't need notifications for everything.
Only for maybe messages from friends and family.
Everything else you can pretty much turn off.
These notifications.
They kind of control your life in a way, because when they pop up They're making you check your phone, or at least you're doing this with the habituation that we talked about.
You're just picking up your phone and checking it once it makes a noise or it flashes.
So those are the three pieces of advice that I think are probably the most sensible out there and the easiest to start doing in your life.
So let me know if you agree.
Do you think those are good pieces of advice?
And also as the listener spotlight, let me know about your digital habits.
You know, what takes your focus?
What distracts you?
Do you have problems with your phone as well or other devices?
So, really to summarize, before we look at our comprehension questions and I'm going to challenge you to see if you understood today's topic
In 2026, the currency of success isn't always about information.
Now it really is about focus, because so many people struggle with focus and attention, and those that are able to control it naturally are going to do better.
So this topic is important for your language success.
If you're able to focus and learn, and focus on your study and your learning even for short periods of time, you're going to see faster success with your English language learning than if you're constantly distracted thinking about your phone or doing something else between tasks.
So do try to reclaim your focus, take it back and you'll see big progress with your learning.
Okay, let's take a look at our comprehension questions today and see how much you understood.
So what does it mean when your focus becomes fragmented?
It means that your attention or your focus is broken into small, incomplete pieces, because you're constantly moving your attention between different things.
Or simply, your focus becomes broken.
Now, question two.
This was quite a hard one.
This is quite a hard one.
It was a small detail.
And I'll see if you picked this up.
What is attention residue?
I mentioned this in one part of the podcast.
Attention residue.
Attention residue is the mental distraction that remains behind after you check your phone.
So when you look at something and you're distracted by something, and then you go back to the task you were doing, but part of your brain is still focused on the distraction.
Question three, why is out of sight important for your smartphone or why is it beneficial?
Because research shows that even if a phone is turned off, if it's near us or we can see it, it is still a distraction and it reduces our ability to focus and think.
Question four, what is superficial focus?
Superficial focus is the opposite of deep focus.
Whenever you have a shallow level of focus, maybe because of that, I suppose because of that attention residue where you're thinking about something else or you're distracted on other things.
So thank you very much for listening.
I hope you were able to focus and listen the whole way through this episode.
Remember to check out the Patreon if you would like to support the show and get access to additional benefits and content.
I think there's over 60 bonus episodes on the Patreon and you'll get access to those immediately if you sign up, for I believe our supporter tier today.
So thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for following and subscribing.
And I will see you in the next episode.
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Goodbye.
