Psyche Bubbles

I have wanted to write this for a while now, not because I want to talk about our attention spans from the point of view of a psychologist and mental health professional, but more so as a person who gets to combine her interests of neuroscience, attention, and….. well, psychology. I can’t help it, I have spent years studying psychology now. In this article, I will touch upon the concepts of attention and what it is, our attention span, what impacts our attention, and the research surrounding our declining attention span, which seems to have worsened due to social media.

What is Attention?

I think this naturally, one of the first questions we might have in our minds when we discuss anything about attention spans is: “What is the definition of attention again?”

As I was reading through different research papers, I ended up focussing on two different definitions:

One of them mentioned attention as a set of evolved brain functions that leads someone to adapt and effectively select behaviour to perform (Krauzlis et. al, 2023). To put it simply, it is a complex process for living things to change and effectively select what actions to perform, when to perform them and how to do it.

Another definition given for attention was as follows: “Attention is the ability to extract time-relevant information and reject irrelevant information to avoid excessive information processing in the nervous system, and influences task performances in daily life, including physical and sporting activities” (Kida et. al, 2017). It is a way for our brain to not get overwhelmed by information and pick and choose what to focus on and how to process that information.

I was listening to a podcast- “Speaking of Psychology” and the host invited Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist, to talk about our attention and how it has been declining over the last two decades. She also mentioned the types of attention they explored throughout their years of research. According to Dr. Gloria Mark, there are two types of attention:

1. Focused Attention: Focused attention ebbs and flows throughout the day, with peaks(high intensity) happening during late morning and mid to late afternoons. We engage in focused attention when we are doing challenging activities that need our engagement to complete them. This can include work that requires concentration, motivation, and creativity. Focused attention requires a lot of effort, and so it is temporary.
2. 2. Rote Activity related to attention: Rote Activity involves things that are engaging to do, but are not challenging. This can include things like reading the news, online games or using social media, and this attention is more consistent throughout the day.

There are other types of attention, too; just to name a few, we have:

1. Selective Attention:- This happens when we are bombarded with numerous attention-grabbing environmental stimuli, and our brain can selectively focus on the ones that are most important to us in a given space and time, while blocking out the others. Example: When we can focus on talking to our friends even in a noisy environment (but if the noise becomes too loud we might find it difficult to focus).
2. Divided Attention:- This refers to our ability to maintain our attention on two or more tasks simultaneously, and some consider it an ability to multitask. Example: Texting a friend on the phone while simultaneously talking to a family member, or paying attention to something we are cooking while also engaging in interesting conversations, can be examples of divided attention.
3. Alternating Attention:- This type of attention can seem similar to divided attention, but it is different because here, we can switch between tasks. We can stop one task to participate in another, and then be able to return to the initial task. Example: When we are typing an email, but then shift our focus to take a call and then go back after to return to completing the email without any problems.

There are many other types of attention given by different psychologists, but I won’t mention them all since the article would become too long. I will add links to the articles I have used to write this article.

Now that we know what attention is (to some extent), the next step is to understand attention span. A simple definition of this term is that attention span is our ability to focus on a task for an extended period. So, our ability to focus on writing a report for 30 minutes, for example, means our attention span for that task is 30 minutes. In the last many years, people have become concerned about our declining attention spans.

In the podcast, Dr. Gloria Mark mentioned that according to the research work she had done, between 2004 and 2023, there has been a significant decline in our attention spans- from 2 and 1/2 minutes in 2004, 75 seconds in 2012, to about 47 seconds between 2018 and 2023; and as recent as 2025. When you look up information about our declining attention span, some of data shows a decrease from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds, but turns out, this data might not be accurate and we have been slandering the reputation of goldfish… and ourselves (by saying that goldfish have an attention span of 9 seconds which seems to not be supported by data and neither is the data accurate that our attention span is 8 seconds). But our attention span has seen a decline, and it is worrying, but it has also been consistently seen among people. So, is it only social media at fault, or is it something more?

Why are our Attention Spans Declining?

If you were to ask this question to your parents or other older adults, they might say, “It’s all because of social media and the damn phone!” But the truth isn’t as straightforward. A survey done by Ohio State University Medical Center of 1000 people shows that in America at least, these were the potential reasons of lower attention spans

• Anxiety and Stress accounts for 43% of people’s low attention span
• Lack of Sleep accounts for 39% of the people’s cause of low attention span
• 31% of the people mentioned that a lack of interest might have caused a low attention span
• 23% of the people mentioned Multi-tasking as the reason behind their low attention span
• Technology and digital devices contribute to 35% of people’s experience of declining attention span
• Other reasons like lack of physical exercise-21%, poor diet and hydration- 20% and medical reasons like ADHD- 18% have also been seen as causes of low attention span.

So, this isn’t as simple as many think, and we can’t simply blame social media and move on, but rather, we have to observe our lifestyle and our health.

Is it our Attention Span or is it Multi-Tasking?

While reading an article by Dr. Subramanian and listening to Dr. Mark’s podcast, I noticed a unanimous focus on multitasking and its potential to cause problems with focus. In one of the sections above, I mentioned different types of attention and out of them, divided and alternating attention are usually the closest explanations of multi-tasking. Now, theoretically, divided attention is synonymous with multitasking, but practically speaking, most people are actually alternating or switching their attention between multiple objects as they multitask. Consistently, switching between tasks can lead to us paying a price.. No, I mean, researchers call it switch cost. Research work done since the 90s has indicated that when we switch between tasks, we can lose “a few tenths of a second per switch” because we are essentially training our mind to stop focusing on the old task and work on the new one. But multitasking in a day can push us to alternate between responsibilities that require all our focus, and can cost us 40% of a person’s time to be productive (Rubinstein, Meyer, and Evans).

Nuanced take on our attention span

Social media and excessive consumption of short-form content can impact our ability to maintain focus over extended periods. Additionally, a lack of sleep, anxiety, stress, and a sedentary lifestyle can leave us feeling frazzled and unable to concentrate on multiple tasks.

Ways to improve our attention

1. Creating a balanced work/study/leisure environment helps minimise distractions, such as our phones or harsh lights. Our setup doesn’t have to be costly or extravagant, like those of people on YouTube videos. The idea is to keep things specific, like sitting at a particular spot for work or dressing up/or down a particular way that you might associate with work or leisure time. This can be a way to provide our brain with cues to connect with specific tasks like work or fun.
2. Our attention is like waves and might not be constant. We might find it easier to work on a project that you have a personal interest in; focus isn’t really a problem then. But certain projects might make us feel like we are dragging our mind and body through the hours, and we just can’t seem to focus on the work. Here, blaming “attention issues” might not help us solve the problems; instead, accepting that our interest may affect our focus is a good place to start. We can also try adding fun ways to make the goals enjoyable, like having a buddy system.
3. Making customized plans that break down the steps to reach a goal at work/school can be effective to help us focus. For most of us, our days feel packed with things to do before our head hits the pillow at night. But that can make us feel overwhelmed and unable to focus on any of the tasks at hand. Setting goals and noting how to meet those goals in the planner/reminder list can make it easier for us to meet the goals. E.g., instead of simply writing “Send the work email to ‘xyz’ “, we can write “Write an email on ‘abc’ subject with (*insert pointers for email) and send by 11 am”. This sounds tedious as a to-do list but might shorten the time when we actually plan to send the email.
4. Taking well-timed breaks is essential. Breaks are necessary for our minds to avoid feeling overwhelmed and tired during work. When tired, we might find it easier to scroll through social media and struggle to sustain attention on our tasks. By becoming aware of how long we can work before needing a break, what types of work affect our attention, and how much work we need to complete before taking a break, we can better time our off-times.
5. Not multi-tasking: Our brains are not meant to do multiple things at the same time. An analogy I like to use is that of sitting for an online meeting in one room (of course with the camera and mic turned off when not needed) and talking to a friend in another room; constantly running back and forth between the meeting and the conversation will soon not only get exhausting but could lead to making mistakes that may cost us the job, the friendship or both. Assigning time to tasks one at a time with breaks in between can be a better way to get work done. It might not be possible to do all the time (especially at work) but it is worth the try.
6. Sleep isn’t directly connected to our ability to focus, but consistently sleeping well is needed to feel restful and alert. When we feel exhausted, we are prone to making mistakes, our brain feels foggy, and we find it hard to focus. We might gravitate towards things like scrolling our phones because it is enjoyable, but not taxing (guilty of that!)
7. Exercise: Regular exercise, like walks or other high-intensity workouts 3-7 times a week, can help us feel more alert.
8. Diet and hydration: Maintaining a relatively healthy meal plan can go beyond our physical health alone; it can help nourish our brain too. Hydration is also paramount to good health- you might have found yourself feeling drowsy, feeling tired when dehydrated, which in turn affects how much attention you pay to your tasks. Diet and Hydration hardly play a direct role in maintaining our attention span, but like good managers, they work behind the scenes to keep us up and running.
9. Following a simple but consistent daily routine: This may sound (or read) like a broken record but maintaining a regular routine that is catered to our needs is a great way to add repetition, predictability and structure- I know these sounds like the worst combination of boring words to use in a sentence- but these help train our minds way better than spontaneity can many times.
10. Knowing whether social media or not being able to focus is any way an avoidance strategy. Sometimes, a task isn’t just boring, but it may be difficult too, and we might keep on shifting our focus to easier tasks like social media, checking notifications, planning our task rather than doing it. Understanding what we may be avoiding and for what reason (if avoidance is even the issue).

Our attention spans may be seeing a gradual decline over the years, and it is indeed worrying, but because this decline is seen in many people and not just a few of us, we might need a thorough look at the systemic and collective changes necessary at not just our social media use, but also work-life balance, sleep, diet, medical history (like ADHD or anxiety) and our stress levels.

Links used to write this article

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American Psychological Association. (n.d.). American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking

Attention – definition and affecting factors. UGCMOOCS- INFLIBNET. (n.d.). https://ugcmoocs.inflibnet.ac.in/assets/uploads/1/15/365/et/P10_M09200218090902023333.pdf

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Cohen, R. A. (2014, July). Focused and sustained attention. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312816948_Focused_and_Sustained_Attention

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