47 Seconds of Attention: Psychology Knows How to Regain Focus

At this year's "SXSW London" festival, there was music, films, and – a lot of discussions about AI. Among the guests was Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. She has been studying how people interact with digital technologies for 30 years. At the beginning of her career, the potential impacts of internet and email usage on our brains were the biggest concerns. Today, we might laugh at these worries, but it is true that our attention span began to shrink as technologies became more ubiquitous and embedded deeper into our daily lives.

Research on Attention Span: "Wow, That's Really Short"

Mark fears that the situation is only getting worse. Accordingly, she spoke at the London festival on the question: "Have we lost control over our brains?" Unfortunately, Mark says the answer is yes. About two decades ago, she began to wonder how our device usage might affect our attention span. She set up so-called "living laboratories" where she observed the attention, mood, and behavior of adult volunteers using devices with the help of sensors and trackers.

In 2003, she found that the average attention span of users was about two and a half minutes. That was how long people could focus on one thing before moving on to something else. "That surprised me back then," she said in London. "I thought: Wow, that's really short."