Jj is for Jottings 10: Adult Attention Span, Part 1.
Here are some disquieting – but not surprising – statistics about paying attention.
According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (in the U.S.), the average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. That’s one second less than the attention span of a goldfish. (I’ve never worked out just how they measure the attention span of a goldfish, but it’s an oft-quoted statistic. Anyway, it doesn’t matter about the goldfish – the point is that the human attention span has dropped.) Research shows the decrease is due to an increase in “external stimuli.” In other words, the harder you try to stay ‘connected’ (checking Facebook, Twitter, and Email); the less connected you actually become.
These findings should come as no surprise. According to a study by app maker Locket, the average person unlocks his or her phone 110 times each day. Another study found the average time spent using a smartphone per day nearly doubled between 2011 and 2013, from 98 minutes to 195 minutes.
To put that into perspective, if you spend just 90 minutes per day using your cell phone that is equal to 23 days a year, which is 3.9 years of your life spent staring at a screen. But that’s only those screens. What about all the other screen times – TV, computer games etc. You’re not trying to stay connected with this type of screen time, but screen time it is, so it is a much greater proportion of your life spent staring at a screen.
We’ll talk more about the effects of poor attention span in Part 2.