ICS News Archive

Your attention span is shrinking, studies say. Here’s how to stay focused

In her new book, “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity,” [Gloria] Mark explained how decades of research has tracked the decline of the ability to focus.

“In 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be 2½ minutes,” Mark said. “Some years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.”

Not only do people concentrate for less than a minute on any one screen, Mark said, but when attention is diverted from an active work project, it also takes about 25 minutes to refocus on that task. (Wait, what??)

Read the full story on CNN.