World News

The Epidemic of Short Attention Spans 

By Desi Derrick McGlynn ‘29 in Fall 2025

This article is 500 words, and on average it takes 2.5 to 3 minutes to read. According to the latest research, today's students will not be able to finish this in one sitting without losing attention. Prove me wrong. 

Attention span is the time that someone can stay focused without getting distracted. For the average person, attention spans dropped 66% from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to about 47 seconds in 2024.

According to a recent Stanford study, the decrease is attributed to consuming multiple forms of digital media at the same time, or multitasking. The need to multitask has been increasing steadily as the internet, mobile devices, and now AI have made information easier to access and more engaging to consume.

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,” wrote Herbert Simon, in his book Designing Organisations for an Information Rich World. Simon won a Nobel Prize for his work  in economics, computer science, and cognitive psychology. 

The attention span crisis affects all of society, but it is most evident for today's students.  Jennifer Oaten, a writer and educator from western Australia, wrote “When the brain is constantly in a state of overdrive, trying to reorient between different stimuli, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve the calm, focused mindset needed for optimal learning and wellbeing.” 

The decrease in attention span has hefty impacts on the ability to learn and retain information. One of the major impacts of dwindling attention spans is that students are unable to listen to lectures, read harder material, engage in deep conversations, and problem solve. Ultimately this makes learning difficult for students because it becomes harder to connect different ideas into long-term understanding. 

On a global scale, there is a bigger problem than just losing the time needed to listen to a lecture or read a long article. The attention span crisis has lasting impacts with stress and cognitive fatigue from digital distractions, leading to worse performance in activities and mental health challenges. “We find in our research a correlation between frequency of attention switching and stress,” said Gloria Mark, a psychologist who studies the relationship between people and their devices. 

Even though this seems like a shift that is happening in the background, the impacts are becoming more pronounced. “[Today's students] can lose the ability to tolerate boredom, delay gratification, and engage in deep work skills that are essential for long-term success, both in school and in their future careers,” said Oaten. 

If I still have your attention, I will leave you with one thought. Your attention span is controlled by your behavior and habits, and the way people choose to approach the world often leaves them with stress or the skills that lead to success. If you want to change it, it's on you.