What's happening to our attention spans?
Are we doomed?
Welcome back to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist, professor at Brown, and mom of three.
6 min read
“You now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish” - A 2015 TIME headline
When it comes to technology, concerns about declining attention spans are common. Many of us worry that our devices are destroying our, or our children’s, ability to pay attention. We notice we have more trouble focusing than we used to. We hear that kids don’t read books anymore. We fear that humans’ attention abilities are shrinking, making us no better than goldfish.
But what’s actually going on here? Are we doomed?
So, I have good news and bad news. Bad news first: yes, we are (very) distracted. The average adult checks their phone 200 times per day, and the average teen 100 times per day. The source of that goldfish statistic (a Microsoft report) suggests that in 2013, we were already switching our attention across work tasks roughly every 8 seconds.1 This frequent switching between email, short-form videos, and the like, results in more boredom, worse memory, and less productivity.
But the good news? We are not doomed!
A new feature article in Nature summarizes the evidence on attention spans, and here is the takeaway:
There is a big difference between our actual ability to pay attention and our behavior in the real-world, when we’re surrounded by distractions. There is little evidence that people’s fundamental ability to pay attention has declined, which means that if we can make our environments less distracting, we can reclaim focus. Hurrah!
What even is an “attention span”?
The ability to pay attention actually involves a few different skills:
Sustained attention, or the ability to stick with a task over time
Selective attention, or the ability to prioritize certain information over other information
Executive control, or the ability to pay attention to what’s important and tune out distractions
Lab studies tend to measure sustained and selective attention. They typically do this through (boring) tasks, like the “d2 Test of Attention.” For this task, participants stare at a long list of letters like this:
They then have to cross off only the letter “d” when it appears with two lines above or below it. They have a certain number of seconds to complete each section. This goes on for about 10 minutes. Fun!2
And what does the evidence say?
A 2024 meta-analysis examining 287 studies of the d2 test, spanning over 31 years (1990-2021) shows no change in attention abilities over that time. In fact, adults got a little better at it.
When it comes to studies outside of the lab, research (unsurprisingly) shows that the frequency with which people switch tasks during the work or school day, for example, has increased over time. We are surrounded by distractions! We spend a whole lot of time quickly toggling between email, social media, documents, Substack, and so on. Young people spend a lot of time doing the same (maybe without the Substack). But this doesn’t mean our fundamental capacity to pay attention has changed.
Correlational research shows that people who frequently switch tasks, as well as those with poorer sustained attention abilities, show differences in grey matter volume in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. We do not know, though, whether this is causal. It may just be that people who already have lower gray matter in these areas are worse at sustaining attention.
Taken together: we do not have good evidence that raw attentional abilities have decreased over time, or that our frequent task-switching is causing some sort of long term brain damage.
But there’s a but
Of course there’s a but.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: our brains shape everything we do, and everything we do shapes our brains. So, does the time we spend task-switching on screens have some sort of impact on our brains? Probably! Likely in ways that are both good and bad. But is it causing irreversible brain rot and irreparable declines in attentional abilities? Most likely, no.
It is also very likely that, although our actual abilities to pay attention have not declined, it feels like they have because we are stuck in a habitual cycle of constant distraction. We’ve gotten used to the fact that, at the slightest hint of boredom or discomfort, we can reach for an app or an email refresh or a ChatGPT prompt. Many of our apps are designed to feed into this impulse.
But we can change this! We can reclaim our attention.
Our species’ attentional abilities have not declined, and we do not have evidence of long term brain damage, but that does not mean we should just happily carry on this way. We need to be very intentional about how we structure our environments to reduce distractions for ourselves and our kids—and, ideally, the tech companies designing these products would help us with this.
Whoops, I got distracted. What’s the takeaway?
We do not have evidence that the raw ability to pay attention has decreased over time. We do have evidence that our environments are making it way too easy to get distracted. This is good news, because it means we can fix it.
When it comes to our relationship to technology, there is a common pattern here. We notice an issue in ourselves or our children, and we magnify it. We see it as evidence of a larger, irreversible trend, or of an inherent trait brought on by our technology and its brain-harming effects. Feeling down after scrolling Instagram becomes evidence of a population-wide surge in depression. A child uncomfortable in social situations becomes evidence of a generational absence of social skills. Difficulty reading with a nearby phone pinging becomes evidence of large-scale declines in attention spans.
It’s not that our technologies are not causing us problems. They are. Often, though, fixing those problems is more in our control than we think.
Check out the full article in Nature (republished in Scientific American).
How to fix your attention span
As with most things, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to reclaiming attention. Some of us may find success in smaller tweaks. Others (maybe most of us) will need larger-scale overhauls of our tech habits. Here are some suggestions:
Technical strategies
Turn off phone notifications entirely. I turn off everything except texts and calls (and, if I’m very hungry, DoorDash).
Delete distracting apps (social media, news) and block distracting websites
Use apps like Freedom, one sec, and StayFocused on both phones and desktops to block distractions
On desktop, use “full screen” mode when working, so your current task takes up the full screen. No more tempting email or text messages peaking out on the edges!
Switch to a minimal smartphone (like Light Phone), or a dumb phone (e.g., flip phone). You do not have to do this permanently, but can consider using it at certain times, while keeping your smartphone.
Try tools like Brick to block distractions
Behavioral strategies
Create friction. Leave your phone in another room, in your bag, or generally out of sight. Simple but effective!
Process email in batches. Check it at certain times, rather than scanning it throughout the day.3
Change your physical setting. Our contexts can trigger habitual behaviors (like checking phones or websites), so try working from a new location, or using a different device.
Try the Pomodoro technique. Do focused work for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. You can also start smaller (5 to 10 minutes), and work your way up to longer focus times.
Take movement breaks. Get up and get moving! Even better if it’s outside. This helps restore focus and increase energy. (For inspiration, read the excellent book Body Electric by Manoush Zomorodi of Manoush Minutes).
“Digital detox.” As previously mentioned, I do not love the term “detox.” However, sometimes a dramatic change can help use rethink and reset our habits.
Emotional strategies
Try “urge surfing.” When you sense an urge (to check your phone, to scan your email), take a moment to stop. Notice how you feel (bored? stuck?). Sit with that emotion for a minute, and watch as the urge slowly subsides.
Give yourself grace! Breaking old habits and building new ones is hard. It takes time and effort. Remind yourself that your brain is not broken. You can do this!
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According to that original Microsoft report, a goldfish’s average attention span was 9 seconds (versus a working adult’s 8 seconds). However, this recent Nature piece offhandedly notes: “Also, goldfish are unfairly maligned; there is no evidence that they have particularly short attention spans, and studies show they retain some information for months.” I’m sorry, months?! My siblings and I had a number of goldfish throughout our childhood—most notably, a pair my brother and sister named “George Washington” and “The Smaller One”—and now I’m wondering what kind of grudge George Washington was holding onto for months at a time? Very unsettling.
I don’t know what it says about me that I now really want to try doing the d2 Test of Attention myself. This is what happens when you stay in school for too many years—you simply cannot turn down a timed test.
Note: it is critical to check your email on Monday mornings sometime after 5:30am ET due to a certain Substack arriving in your inbox at that time.
Exactly what I needed to read. Thank you!!
excellent!