Opinion Article

Your Attention Span Is Narrowing. What Can You Do To Fix It?

What is Attention Span?

According to Oxford Languages, “​Attention Span (​əˈten(t)SHən span/​noun) is the length of time for which a person is able to concentrate mentally on a particular activity. Simply put, it is how long a person can focus on a single activity. The attention span of a goldfish for example, is on average 9 seconds.

What Are the Trends for Human Attention Span?

According to a study published by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark, people are quickly losing interest in a topic as opposed to being able to keep their focus on a singular issue.

According to another interesting study done by Ping Feng, a thesis for Masters of Art to The Temple University Graduate Board shows, “The results suggest that although the movie trailers are much shorter than the whole movies, the average shot lengths of the trailers still display a declining trend over the past 60 years, and the variations in the shot lengths are also decreasing. Second, the motions within each frame do not change significantly over the years, while the correlation coefficients between the shot lengths and the motions within the shots are moving toward a more negative correlation relationship over time, suggesting that the trailers are subject to an editing evolution trend that the shorter the shot is, the more motions there are within it, and this also aligns with the overall movies’ editing pattern evolution trend.” This shows how people have been conditioned to expect something new and exciting every few seconds in order to focus properly.

How does this affect me and how can I cope?

One good aspect of a short span is that people are able to absorb and learn a lot of information in a short amount of time. However, according to the National Health Institute, a shorter attention span can result in increased irritability as well as inability to focus on one task at a time. As a means of coping some suggestions include:

• Practicing grounding exercises- Sometimes people can get distracted with one’s own thoughts so in situations such as this, grounding oneself can help. Grounding roots oneself in the here and now, resulting in better focus.

• Taking short breaks: Short breaks can help one refresh and recharge oneself and lead to one becoming more focused on your work. Overworking can release to burnout and fatigue. Taking breaks can help minimize that.

• Practicing breathing exercises- Breathing exercises can help soothe and calm one. Focusing on exams and similar activities can be stressful. Deep breathing and breathing exercises helps the body relax so the mind also follows suit.

• Trying not to multitask- Multitasking can lead to attention being diverted which can lead to a decrease in cognitive effort- the engaged proportion of limited capacity central processing.

• Studying with white noise playing in the background- White noise can also calm one since the equal distribution across frequencies creates a steady humming sound.
• Trying the Mozart Effect- The Mozart Effect is when one listens to classical music while performing a task. This helps with better memory retention as well as focusing on the task.

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