Developers, Struggling To Focus on New Concepts? Why It May Not Be Your Fault

In the development world, Web3 might have one of the most rapid rates of change for developers.

As a developer, keeping up with changes can be a challenge. I’ve written about how to learn new things by building and the risk of tutorial hell, but tutorials have their place. Regarding tutorials to learn something new, I’ve noticed a change.

Tutorials have new competition, and I think it’s making them worse.

Everything is competing for your time.

Social media dominates the digital environment from X to YouTube, creating new algorithmic competition for your time.

This competition has filtered into every aspect of content on these platforms. Tutorials are one area where I’m worried about the impacts. We must resist the urge to have entertainment as the primary driver when learning something new.

Learning is a complex process that should be slightly apart from the attention economy.

That sure sounds boring.

I’m not advocating for a monotone professor standing behind a podium.

There is a need for content to be engaging and keep your attention. In this age of digital attention warfare, it’s essential to recognize that your struggle to focus on a tutorial is not your fault. As creators, let’s strive to create content with minimal context switching. This will help with the cognitive load of learning new things, but we must keep our content engaging.

When learning new things, give yourself some grace if it’s hard to focus. As a creator, let’s strive to build engaging things that don’t fall into attention-seeking traps.