Do smartphones and social media affect our attention and focus?

HMD and Professor Gloria Mark discuss how phones are making our attention span shorter and what we can do to stop it.

The constant notifications and scrolling on a variety of apps can be a lot for our brains to manage daily. Not even including the work or school day most of us have to endure on top of this. The more our days seem to involve, the more difficult we are finding it to pay attention.

It really isn’t hard to believe that the way our brains pay attention has shifted dramatically in the 21st century, especially with the introduction of smartphones and social media. With short-form content being so prominent in our lives, our brains are conditioned to pay attention for less and less time, holding capacity for smaller amounts of information.

Finding balance in amongst digital distraction

We spoke to Professor Gloria Mark as part of the HMD Better Phone Project online sessions. Professor Mark is the Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California and has spent two decades researching the human attention span and how it has been impacted by technology. In her latest endeavour, her book appropriately named ‘Attention Span’, she discusses her findings. Professor Mark was kind enough to give us her attention and allow us to pay attention to her throughout session three of the Better Phone Project online sessions.

Lars Silberbauer, CMO at HMD, launched The Better Phone Project earlier this year. He joined Professor Mark during her recent discussion and took the time to explain to the audience why it is so important to develop a product involving the future users of the product. As much as the Better Phone Project is beginning to make ways come towards the end, Lars claims “We’re definitely not done yet. We’re not done before we actually have new products (that are alternatives to smartphones) and we have options in the hands of consumers that are different than the ones we have today.”

Check out more about the project here: hmd.com/better-phone-project

Protecting your mind’s CEO

Our body is like a functioning company, going about the business of simply getting through the day, productively and safely. At the head of this priceless enterprise is the brain and within this hierarchy is the executive function, the minds CEO.

According to Professor Mark, getting the right amount of sleep and waking up refreshed is great indicator that you have a plentiful supply of attentional resources. This is where your executive function is at peak performance level, helping filter distractions and keeping us on track. However, as the day goes on, if you find yourself getting further and further distracted, losing sight of the end product of the task at hand, your attention capacity is draining and your executive function begins to tire.

Professor Mark has said “We get into this cycle, where we get tired, and the executive function gets exhausted. And we become more susceptible to distractions and its harder to focus.”

With our executive function it is important to protect it to avoid burn out, but it is also important to nurture it and train it to withstand longer periods of focus.

47 seconds = the average attention span

As predicted, we are paying attention less and less! With the average attention span currently being 47 seconds, getting shorter and shorter as time goes on. Professor Mark made the shocking discovery of this through her attention studies, claiming “I didn't think that people's attention spans were so short. In 2012, we found it went down to 75 seconds on average. And in later years, starting from around 2016, we found that attention spans averaged 47 seconds. And this was also replicated by others as well…The median (aka midpoint) of our observations shows attention spans to be 40 seconds. That means half of all the observations show people who spend 40 seconds or less on any particular screen before switching to something else. That's very short.”

Mental health of young minds – why it matters

Professor Mark found that the executive function does not begin to mature until the age of 10, meaning any harsh screen time before this age is not good for this area of development. It is important to place attention span protection in young children as a priority as it affects them all throughout life, especially in the vital years of schooling and as they move into the workforce. In order to do this from a young age, and based on recommendations from Kaiser Permanente and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Professor Mark came up with an acronym for parents to help manage their child’s attention span and mental wellbeing.

ESPRIT to protect attention span & mental wellbeing of children – six tips that really count

Professor Mark created the acronym ESPRIT, which also translates to the strength of body and mind. The acronym helps serve as a reminder and a way for parents to monitor and support the growth of their child’s attention span and mental wellbeing.

E – The E stands for Example Setting. Parents are the most impactful role models in a child's life and should live their digital life as an example for their children. This could mean, not going on your phone or device while having in person conversations or at all while with their child.

S – The S stands for Sleep. Professor Mark reiterated the importance of sleep and how too much time on devices can affect a child’s sleep quality. “The blue light from screens can interfere with a child's sleep. Make sure that your child stops viewing screens at least one hour before bedtime.”

P – The P stands for Public Viewing. Making sure that your child is accessing the internet and their devices in a public setting so that you can monitor what they are doing, making it easier to shut off the device when needed, see what your child is viewing and help keep them safer overall.

R – The R stands for Relationships Matter. Communicate with your child and ensure that they understand the importance of real-life and in-person conversations/interactions. This is a skill your child will need forever, and it is important they know how to interact with people in a real-world setting to build up their communication skills.

I – The I stands for Instructional Apps and Programs. There are ways for your child to interact with technology (in small doses) to help with their development. “There can be a lot of educational content that is very valuable for children.”

T – The T stands got Time Limits. There has to be time limits in place while they are using technology so that the addictive nature of these devices does not overtake them. Professor Mark recommends:

• Children under two years old – NO screen time
• Children between two and five years old – One hour maximum of screen time
• Children older than five years old – Choose a small limit and ENFORCE it.

If you’re an adult trying to lengthen and regulate your attention span, here’s some tips from Professor Mark:

• Recognise your personal rhythm for attention and design your day with your hardest tasks at peak attention and breaks when you know your attention begins to lower.
• Be more aware of your attentive actions; when you’re on your device take mental note of when you feel the need to look at another screen and ty and convince yourself to stay on the task at hand.
• Write down intentional and achievable goals to help you visual the bigger picture while completing your tasks.
• Use social media with intent and purpose and if you’re not, put it down.