#290:Attention Scientist Reveals How To Stop AI Eroding Your Mind - Dr. Gloria Mark

Yeah.

How much worse is our attention span than it used to be?

Well, you know, I've been studying this for a long time and I started studying it back in 2003.

And at the time, and we studied this objectively, we don't just ask people questions.

You know, how do you feel like you're paying attention? And back then, people averaged two and a half minutes on a screen with their attention before they switched to something else.

And then in 2012, it went down to 75 seconds on average.

And then starting around 2014, people's attention averaged 47 seconds on a screen.

So, you know, we did multiple studies.

It's also been replicated by other people.

You know, we found 44 seconds, 50 seconds, 48 seconds, and it all averages to 47 seconds.

So, yes, it's declined quite a bit, like over a 60% decline

in about 20 years.

That's shocking.

It's

horrible.

Is it the kind of thing that we can reverse when you have your attention span reduce and you build these thought patterns or habits? Can we reverse that and increase our attention span again?

Yeah, absolutely, we can.

So we can retrain our minds so that we remember what it's like to pay attention, and that's called sustained attention.

And we can retrain our minds by reading books is one of the best ways to do it because it reminds us of what it's like to pay attention for an extended period of time, especially if you can get immersed in a book, right? That's really great.

So it's a very different kind of process than if you're just scrolling, say on social media or scrolling through news, which is short form content.

So the content changes very, very quickly and we don't really have a chance to really grasp what's going on.

But when you read a book, yeah, you can develop skills of deliberating, reflecting.

We get, our mind learns what patience is.

We remember what it means to be absorbed, not absorbed in a way like social media absorbs us, but in a way that absorbs us so that we really start thinking about things that we might not have before.

Yeah, I always feel so much better when I physically read a book.

Yeah.

How much worse is our attention span than it used to be?

Well, you know, I've been studying this for a long time and I started studying it back in 2003.

And at the time, and we studied this objectively, we don't just ask people questions.

You know, how do you feel like you're paying attention? And back then, people averaged two and a half minutes on a screen with their attention before they switched to something else.

And then in 2012, it went down to 75 seconds on average.

And then starting around 2014, people's attention averaged 47 seconds on a screen.

So, you know, we did multiple studies.

It's also been replicated by other people.

You know, we found 44 seconds, 50 seconds, 48 seconds, and it all averages to 47 seconds.

So, yes, it's declined quite a bit, like over a 60% decline

in about 20 years.

That's shocking.

It's

horrible.

Is it the kind of thing that we can reverse when you have your attention span reduce and you build these thought patterns or habits? Can we reverse that and increase our attention span again?

Yeah, absolutely, we can.

So we can retrain our minds so that we remember what it's like to pay attention, and that's called sustained attention.

And we can retrain our minds by reading books is one of the best ways to do it because it reminds us of what it's like to pay attention for an extended period of time, especially if you can get immersed in a book, right? That's really great.

So it's a very different kind of process than if you're just scrolling, say on social media or scrolling through news, which is short form content.

So the content changes very, very quickly and we don't really have a chance to really grasp what's going on.

But when you read a book, yeah, you can develop skills of deliberating, reflecting.

We get, our mind learns what patience is.

We remember what it means to be absorbed, not absorbed in a way like social media absorbs us, but in a way that absorbs us so that we really start thinking about things that we might not have before.

Yeah, I always feel so much better when I physically read a book.