The Attentional Demands of Digital Life:Situational, Cognitive, and Individual Mechanisms of Social Media Distraction
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Smartphones and social media have become deeply integrated into everyday life.They appear during work, social interaction, learning, and moments of rest.While digital technologies provide convenience, connectivity, and access to information, they also create persistent attentional demands.Staying focused has become increasingly dif�icult in environments designed to compete for attention through continuous connectivity, noti�ications, and rapidly accessible digital alternatives.Across public debates concerning "noti�ication fatigue," workplace "digital noise," and proposals restricting smartphone use, particularly in educational settings, a shared concern has emerged: people increasingly experience dif�iculty sustaining attention in digitally connected environments.Concerns about shrinking attention spans and the cognitive consequences of constant digital connectivity have further intensi�ied public and organizational interest in how digital environments shape attentional functioning.Yet scienti�ic understanding of how these attentional demands operate, and why some individuals struggle more than others, remains incomplete.This dissertation examines digital distraction not simply as a matter of excessive screen time or overt disengagement, but as a broader attentional-regulation challenge unfolding across everyday situations.Speci�ically, the dissertation investigates how attentional outcomes are shaped by situational contexts that in�luence what becomes salient and tempting in the moment, cognitive processes involved in sustaining focus under competing demands, and individual differences that shape vulnerability and resilience under distraction.The overarching research question is: How do individuals regulate attention under the attentional demands of digitally connected environments, particularly under social media-related distraction?The dissertation approaches this question through complementary situational, cognitive, and individual-difference perspectives on attentional regulation under distraction.To address this question, the dissertation integrates perspectives from attention research, decision-making theory, and self-regulation research.Empirically, the dissertation focuses on social media-related distraction as a central case through which broader digitally connected attentional demands can be examined.The dissertation consists of three empirical papers that investigate distraction from complementary situational, cognitive, and individual-difference perspectives.Taken together, the dissertation contributes a multi-level understanding of attentional regulation under digital distraction.Across the three papers, the �indings suggest that distraction is not only re�lected in observable behaviors such as checking one's phone, but also in the often less visible cognitive effort required to resist salient digital alternatives and sustain goal-directed attention over time.The dissertation highlights how situational trade-offs shape attentional competition, how compensatory regulation can preserve performance despite increasing cognitive demands, and how individual differences in�luence vulnerability and resilience within digitally connected environments.By clarifying in which situations digital distraction becomes more likely, what attentional costs it may impose, and why individuals differ in their responses, the dissertation provides a foundation for understanding how digitally connected environments can be designed, structured, and governed in ways that better support sustainable attention and goal-directed behavior.Duke, EÉ ., & Montag, C. (2017).Smartphone addiction, daily interruptions and selfreported productivity.Addictive Behaviors Reports, 6, 90-95.
Author: Nielsen, Nina Melanie Mølgaard
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7162701867