Good morning. We’re digging into the science behind digital distraction – more on that below, along with Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles in Russia and Donald Trump’s latest batch of cabinet picks. But first:

• Canada’s security agencies suspect Indian PM Modi knew of the plot to kill a Sikh activist in B.C.
• Bomb cyclone batters B.C. with hurricane-force winds, cutting roads and power
• Canada weighs cutting Mexico out of future trade pacts as Trump taps a pro-tariff CEO for commerce secretary

The world seems largely resigned to our shrinking attention spans. Chart-topping pop songs are 60 seconds shorter than they were in the 1990s. Movies are ditching long shots in favour of quicker pacing. The SAT even got a redesign earlier this spring – instead of tackling four hefty reading-comprehension passages, students now test their critical thinking on 54 two- or three-sentence blurbs.

And we all know who to blame for this inability to concentrate: smartphones! Also: social media! Plus, the seven e-mails and eleventy Slack notifications that came through as I typed this one sentence. It’s become conventional wisdom that technology has fundamentally altered our brains. But The Globe’s Zosia Bielski – who recently turned her own focus to investigating our relationship with time – wanted to examine what the science actually shows about how the brain copes with digital diversions. In her new feature, she spoke with psychologists, academics and authors about the roots of distraction and the real role of technology. We chatted about what she found.

It sure feels like my attention span is much shorter, and it’d be nice to blame the 19 tabs open on my browser for that decline. But what do neuroscientists say about whether tech has rewired our brains?

Let me close my own 19 tabs so I can focus on these questions.

There is little disagreement that digital technologies are designed to be powerfully distracting. It’s clear these technologies can be addictive and isolating, particularly for younger people. Gloria Mark, who looks at human-computer interactions, has tracked workers’ attention spans and reports they are shrinking. In 2004, she found workers were able to hold their attention on a single task on a screen for about 2.5 minutes. By 2012, their focus had dropped to 75 seconds. By 2016: a pathetic 47 seconds.

The question is, have our brains been fundamentally altered by tech, or did they evolve long ago to be distractible? A team led by Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva, a University of British Columbia psychology professor, ran fMRI scans on a group of meditation practitioners. They found that even for those hyper-trained in quieting their minds, spontaneous thoughts arose, on average, every 10 to 20 seconds. Obviously, the meditators didn’t have a laptop with a bunch of tabs open in there. Interruption, high frequency of thoughts: This is the mind’s natural state, Christoff Hadjiilieva argues. It’s not being fixated on one thing for a long period of time.

I get that anxiety over life’s competing distractions dates back at least as far as the Stoics, but isn’t there something different about highly scrollable temptations like TikTok and Instagram?

These are not the distractions of yore. I appreciated this, from former Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman, who now writes books about our precious time: “If you put yourself in a cabin in the woods, far from any digital distractions, you’re still perfectly capable of distracting yourself from work by staring out the window or deciding it’s time to clean the kitchen again. But those things are not designed to hold your attention for as long as possible.”

Technology ethicist Tristan Harris has talked about the armies of engineers on the other side of our screens making sure we stay glued there. Harris worked for Google and pleaded with colleagues to respect users’ attention. It’s why the digital distraction debate is particularly fierce around children, whose brains aren’t yet fully developed for self-control. And it’s why school boards are banning phones in classrooms and suing social-media behemoths for designing addictive tech that educators feel derails focus and learning.

What about us grown-ups — are we getting worse at exercising self-control?

Despite a cottage industry of productivity tips and hacks, it’s clear our efforts to focus are failing. Adults splurging on digital detox holidays come back refreshed – and sanctimonious – but soon find themselves doomscrolling in bed again. Nearly half of teens accused their parents of being distracted on their phones when they try to talk to them, according to a depressing Pew Research Center report published in March. For some thinkers studying attention, the question becomes: What is tech responsible for, and what are we responsible for? If berating our squirrel brains isn’t working, if setting locks and timers on our phones isn’t working, what are we missing?

What do they think motivates this drive toward distraction?

Burkeman and others I interviewed see our flight down the internet rabbit hole as discomfort avoidance. What are we uncomfortable about? A hiccup in our day. Stress at work. A deadline that really matters. Our relationships. So, a spontaneous scroll through Instagram or Facebook becomes a “pacifier,” as clinical psychologist Zelana Montminy put it. “A lot of people feel ashamed by this,” she said. “But this urge to self-interrupt is the brain’s way of seeking comfort.”

Burkeman said people are often confounded by their trouble maintaining focus on the things that matter to them. But he sees it as a no-brainer. When the stakes are high, when the prospect of failing is distressing, we distract ourselves, often online. And while scrolling is gratifying in the short-term – we do it with such gusto – these researchers also talked about looking back on those distracted hours or days with pain. What could have been done instead? Progress on an important project, new skills cultivated, phone calls made to friends or family, and so on.

So can I claw back a bit of my focus, instead of avoiding scary deadlines with a spin through Instagram?

Burkeman sees folly in the industry of productivity hacks. He talks instead about trying very hard to defend three to four hours of focus a day, but then not getting too obsessive about anything beyond that time frame, when attention becomes more of a crapshoot, with or without tech. I’m trying to be more aware of how I distract myself online, but I’m also letting go of the punishing notion that we can control how all of our hours unfold through sheer willpower. There’s relief in accepting that it often doesn’t work that way.