Latest news with #attentionSpan
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
If Ted Talks are getting shorter, what does that say about our attention spans?
Name: Ted Talks Age: Ted started in 1984. And has Ted been talking ever since? Ted – short for Technology, Entertainment, Design – is an American-Canadian non-profit media organisation that has an annual conference … I know, and they do the inspirational online talks. Correct, under the slogan 'Ideas change everything'. Anyway, what about them? They're shorter. The talks? Than what? Than before. How much shorter? Six minutes. Says who? Says Elif Shafak. The Turkish-British novelist? Novelist, essayist, public speaker, activist. She was talking at the Hay festival, in Wales. What did she say? That when she first did a Ted Talk she was given a limit of 19 minutes, but a decade later she was told to keep it to a trim 13. Why? That's what she asked Ted. And Ted said? According to Shafak, TED said: 'Well, the world's average attention span has shrunk.' How did that make her feel? 'Really sad. We are incapable of listening to a talk for more than a few minutes.' She went on to say that it was because we are living 'in an age of hyper-information'. Too much to take in? Exactly. 'We cannot process this much information,' she continued. 'And in the long run it makes us tired, demoralised, then numb because we stop caring.' My god, sounds terminal. Is it true, that our attention spans have shrunk? A lack of long-term studies means we don't know for sure, but the public seems to think it has. Tell me more. But get on with it. A study by King's College London in 2022 found that 49% of people believe their attention spans have become shorter, 50% say they can't stop checking their phones … Young people probably. Nope. Also a struggle for the middle-aged. And 50% of people also believed – wrongly – that the average attention span for adults today is just eight seconds. Sorry, what were we talking about again? Short attention spans. Oh yes. I knew that. What about books though, are they getting shorter too? Well, interestingly, a 2015 study suggested the opposite, that they were 25% longer than they were 15 years earlier. I'm sensing there's a but coming. But the longlist for this year's International Booker includes eight books that are less than 200 pages. What about films, they're definitely getting longer, right? The short answer: no. Slightly longer answer: again, we just think they are, probably because of marketing. Studios want to incentivise people to spend money on a ticket, which they do by telling you it's big, epic and special. Hang on, so we think attention is going down but it might not be, and films are getting longer, but they're not? Very perceptive. Someone should do a Ted Talk about it. Do say: 'Can you even change everything in 13 minutes?' Don't say: 'Hurry up, you're losing the room.'
Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Anthony Horowitz: Children can't read long books any more
Children may no longer have the attention span to read novels more than 300 pages long, according to Anthony Horowitz. The 70-year-old author said he believed modern society was rewiring children's minds, and popular books were now 'very short' and had big type and lots of pictures. He added that his bestselling Alex Rider series of children's books may not have been as successful if they were released now. Speaking to the Headliners podcast, Mr Horowitz said: 'The world of children's books at the moment doesn't look to me to be in a very good state. 'I wonder if there is still a large audience for Alex Rider novels, which are long-ish, 300-plus pages and quite complicated. They are proper novels. 'I'm not saying they're great literature, but I am saying that they are, you know, proper novels. I worry that the audience is not there for them any more. 'Actually, if I was writing the Alex Rider books today, if I started with Stormbreaker this afternoon, I worry [if] it would find an audience because this is to do with attention spans, to do with social media, to do with smartphones, to do with the way that children's minds are being rewired almost by modern society.' Mr Horowitz added that he was 'happy' his adult books now occupied most of his time, confirming that he currently had no plans 'to do any more Alex Riders'. He continued: 'I have misgivings about the world of children's books. You know if you look in a bookshop, the books that seem to be popular – and I'm not decrying them for a minute because they are giving children pleasure – tend to have very bright colours on the cover and [a] sort of slightly cartoonish look. 'They're very short, they're big type, they're lots of pictures... that seems to be now what is more popular and it's not what I write.' He added that the challenge may be to write books 'designed specifically for an audience that doesn't particularly want to read'. 'I have been thinking to myself for some time that everybody's saying that children don't want to read any more, that it's getting more and more difficult,' the author said. 'So why isn't a writer doing something about it to actually address the point, to produce a book that children will read? 'And does that mean that the book will have to be in some way really different to how books used to be and what they looked like? I'm beginning to think along those lines a little bit.' 'Pandering down to children' Last year, Mr Horowitz claimed children's literature was ' going downhill ' because publishers were flooding the market with silly books rather than proper stories. Speaking at the Hay Festival, he said: ' JK Rowling somehow managed to create a 600-page book with some quite demanding ideas in it and then the later Harry Potters, which are quite dark and certainly long, and they were this phenomenal international hit. 'Do you believe that any book published now, which had 150,000 words in it and aimed at a market of eight to 15-year-olds, would have any chance?' He added: 'It worries me that the world of children's books has changed. 'It is beginning, I worry, to go downhill in the sense of lowering expectations – so many books, which are just funny, silly, bad jokes, and the actual idea of the literate children's book, the well-written, real story, is less popular now. 'It seems to me that if there's a trend in modern children's books, if you just walk into a bookshop and look at the covers around you, you now see the same imagery, the same gaudy colours, the same pandering down to children rather than raising their expectations.'
Associated Press
17-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Easily distracted? How to improve your attention span
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Feel like you can't focus? Like you'll never finish a book again? Like the only way to keep your mind and hands busy is to scroll on social media for hours? You're far from alone. One body of decades-long research found the average person's attention span for a single screen is 47 seconds, down from 2.5 minutes in 2004. The 24/7 news cycle, uncertainty about the state of the world and countless hours of screen time don't help, experts say. 'When my patients talk to me about this stuff there is often a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness,' said Dr. Michael Ziffra, a psychiatrist at Northwestern Medicine. 'But you can change these behaviors. You can improve your attention span.' Here are ways to start that process. As you read, challenge yourself to set a 2.5 minute timer and stay on this article without looking at another device or clicking away. How did we lose focus? A shifting attention is an evolutionary feature, not a bug. Our brains are hardwired to quickly filter information and hone in on potential threats or changes in what's happening around us. What's grabbing our attentions has changed. For our ancestors, it might have been a rustle in the bushes putting us on guard for a lurking tiger. Today, it could be a rash of breaking news alerts and phone notifications. The COVID-19 pandemic warped many people's sense of time and increased their screen usage like never before, said Stacey Nye, a clinical psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Technology isn't the only thing that influences our attention, experts say, but the effects of those pinging notifications or hours scrolling through 30-second long videos can build up over time. 'Our attention span has really been trained to only focus in those little, small blips and it interrupts our natural focus cycles,' she said. Give your wandering mind 'active breaks' Experts say 'active' breaks are among the best way to retrain your mind and your attention. They only take about 30 minutes, Nye said, and can be as simple as taking a walk while noticing things around you or moving to another room for lunch. Don't be afraid to get creative. Develop a list of alternative activities or randomly choose ideas out of a fish bowl. Try craft projects, a short meditation, fixing a quick meal or talking a walk outside. All the better if you can involve a friend as well. The break needs to be a physical or mental activity — no passive phone-scrolling. When the brain is understimulated and looking for change, it'll usually grab onto the first thing it sees. The smartphone, an 'ever-producing change machine,' is an enticing option, said Cindy Lustig, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Michigan. Turn off unnecessary notifications and put that 'do not disturb' mode to good use, especially before bedtime. Better yet, put your phone in a whole different room, Lustig said. Say no to multitasking Multitasking may make you feel like you're getting more done, but brain experts recommend against it. 'Be a single tasker,' Nye said. 'Work on one thing at a time, for a specified period of time and begin to work your way up.' Lustig is a big fan of the 'Pomodoro technique,' in which you set a timer and work on something for 25 or 30 minutes before taking a five-minute break. She tells herself: 'I can do anything for this amount of time,' and the world will still be waiting for her at the end. Start with something you actually like and set a goal It's not enough to just have a hobby, Lustig said. It helps to choose hobbies that include deliberate practice and a goal to strive toward, whether it's playing guitar for an audience or improving in a sport. It helps to pick something that you enjoy as well. 'You don't want to start with the heavy nonfiction or like 'War and Peace,'' Lustig said. 'If you need to start with the romance novel, then start with the romance novel. You can work your way up.' It's also important to be kind to yourself. Everyone has good and bad days, and attention needs are different — and even vary from task to task. The key is to make an intentional effort, experts say. 'It is in many ways similar to a muscle in the sense that we can build it up with practice and exercises,' Ziffra said. 'Conversely, it can weaken if we're not exercising it.' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Independent
17-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Easily distracted? How to improve your attention span
Feel like you can't focus? Like you'll never finish a book again? Like the only way to keep your mind and hands busy is to scroll on social media for hours? You're far from alone. One body of decades-long research found the average person's attention span for a single screen is 47 seconds, down from 2.5 minutes in 2004. The 24/7 news cycle, uncertainty about the state of the world and countless hours of screen time don't help, experts say. 'When my patients talk to me about this stuff there is often a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness,' said Dr. Michael Ziffra, a psychiatrist at Northwestern Medicine. 'But you can change these behaviors. You can improve your attention span.' Here are ways to start that process. As you read, challenge yourself to set a 2.5 minute timer and stay on this article without looking at another device or clicking away. How did we lose focus? A shifting attention is an evolutionary feature, not a bug. Our brains are hardwired to quickly filter information and hone in on potential threats or changes in what's happening around us. What's grabbing our attentions has changed. For our ancestors, it might have been a rustle in the bushes putting us on guard for a lurking tiger. Today, it could be a rash of breaking news alerts and phone notifications. The COVID-19 pandemic warped many people's sense of time and increased their screen usage like never before, said Stacey Nye, a clinical psychologist at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Technology isn't the only thing that influences our attention, experts say, but the effects of those pinging notifications or hours scrolling through 30-second long videos can build up over time. 'Our attention span has really been trained to only focus in those little, small blips and it interrupts our natural focus cycles,' she said. Give your wandering mind 'active breaks' Experts say 'active' breaks are among the best way to retrain your mind and your attention. They only take about 30 minutes, Nye said, and can be as simple as taking a walk while noticing things around you or moving to another room for lunch. Don't be afraid to get creative. Develop a list of alternative activities or randomly choose ideas out of a fish bowl. Try craft projects, a short meditation, fixing a quick meal or talking a walk outside. All the better if you can involve a friend as well. The break needs to be a physical or mental activity — no passive phone-scrolling. When the brain is understimulated and looking for change, it'll usually grab onto the first thing it sees. The smartphone, an 'ever-producing change machine,' is an enticing option, said Cindy Lustig, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Michigan. Turn off unnecessary notifications and put that 'do not disturb' mode to good use, especially before bedtime. Better yet, put your phone in a whole different room, Lustig said. Say no to multitasking Multitasking may make you feel like you're getting more done, but brain experts recommend against it. 'Be a single tasker," Nye said. ' Work on one thing at a time, for a specified period of time and begin to work your way up.' Lustig is a big fan of the 'Pomodoro technique," in which you set a timer and work on something for 25 or 30 minutes before taking a five-minute break. She tells herself: 'I can do anything for this amount of time," and the world will still be waiting for her at the end. Start with something you actually like and set a goal It's not enough to just have a hobby, Lustig said. It helps to choose hobbies that include deliberate practice and a goal to strive toward, whether it's playing guitar for an audience or improving in a sport. It helps to pick something that you enjoy as well. 'You don't want to start with the heavy nonfiction or like 'War and Peace,'' Lustig said. 'If you need to start with the romance novel, then start with the romance novel. You can work your way up.' It's also important to be kind to yourself. Everyone has good and bad days, and attention needs are different — and even vary from task to task. The key is to make an intentional effort, experts say. 'It is in many ways similar to a muscle in the sense that we can build it up with practice and exercises,' Ziffra said. 'Conversely, it can weaken if we're not exercising it.' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
