How to increase your attention span when faced with digital overload

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Every morning I wake up to a stack of notifications from media platforms. Then I browse the news feeds while sipping my coffee. On the way to work I feel bombarded by information and advertisements on X, formerly known as Twitter. I am overwhelmed and pulled in several directions at once.

Despite my attempts to limit screen time through app limits, I often ignore them and blame myself for the time I waste mindlessly doomscrolling – all for short-lived, pleasant dopamine hits from tons of content I can't remember. A movie or other longer content seems like too much of a burden.

But it's not just me.

On my way to work or on the train, I notice many other people looking down and staring at their phones. They are engrossed in the digital world and constantly competing for attention. They are vying to keep their eyes on the screen.

According to Dr. Gloria Mark, professor of computer science at the University of California, Irvine and author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, the average concentration time of people staring at a single screen has dropped from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to an average of 47 seconds in 2021.

This decline in our attention capacity could be a problem. Mark said that in previous research presented at the 2008 SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, she found a strong correlation between higher levels of stress and the frequency of attention switches.

Although in most cases a declining attention span is not due to personal failing (despite individual variability), experts say you can make changes to regain control of your mind.

The market has priced our attention through competition in an “attention economy” that affects the internet, social media and our lifestyles, says D. Graham Burnett, founder and director of the Institute for Sustained Attention, a nonprofit dedicated to attention activism, and co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention in Brooklyn, New York. He calls this the “commercialization of our attention.”

“Our attention is being monetized like never before,” said Burnett, who is also the Henry Charles Lea, professor of history at Princeton University in New Jersey. “We are currently experiencing a kind of gold rush, a gigantic, technologically complex and capital-intensive program for the financial exploitation of our most intimate and basic attentional abilities.”

Burnett called the process human fracking and said this competition for our attention is toxic. The bombardment “destabilizes, pollutes and contaminates the very structures of our being and our relationships,” he said.

Likewise, Mark noted the increasing complexity of algorithms that track individual people's behavior and interests to curate feeds and ads that follow everyone across platforms.

“Technology companies and advertising marketing firms use this information to build profiles about us and then develop algorithms that specifically target our attention,” Mark said. This is the phenomenon of surveillance capitalism, as Shoshana Zuboff, professor emerita at Harvard Business School in Boston, coined it: They collect your data to track and predict your behavior.

“If I click on an ad for a pair of boots, I go to Facebook and I see the boots,” she said. “And if I go to the New York Times, I see the boots and they follow me everywhere.”

Even the film and clip lengths of your favorite TV shows have gotten shorter over the years, with a cut every four seconds on average, Mark said. “I'm not saying this leads to short attention spans, but it reinforces our already short attention spans when we watch a movie,” she said.

Online videos also use jump cuts as an aesthetic element to maintain attention. They remove filler words and natural pauses, Mark said, noting that this abruptness creates impatience in normal conversations between people.

Limits on the length of content on social media also exacerbate the attention problem. As users move through content at a rapid pace, they can develop expectations for quick content changes, says Mark. The goal is to get the user to scroll, because the longer they scroll, the more revenue these platforms make. And there is no financial incentive for the platforms to change this model.

According to Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention — and How To Think Deeply Again, technology isn't the only factor that affects attention span.

The other 11 factors include office workflows, air pollution, classroom structures and nutrition. “The most important solution is to protect ourselves in the environment and change the environment together,” Hari said.

Hari spent time in Silicon Valley interviewing experts who designed key aspects of our technological world. He said they have come to realize how much they have contributed to the current attention deficit. “I think what struck me most is how pathologically guilty they feel about their actions,” he said.

Deleting all media from your phone may not be necessary, but it's important to maintain balance. “We're social creatures,” Mark said, which is why we respond to messages and use media to socialize and communicate.

Here are Mark's suggestions for regaining control of technology.

Become aware of your automatic behavior. Pay attention to when you pick up your device – develop a “meta-awareness” that means you realize what you are doing as it unfolds.

Develop a plan for breaks. They can be scheduled at logical times in your day to avoid burnout and recharge. Mark suggests meditating, going for a walk or reading something inspirational. Regular breaks are important, she said, to avoid “mental exhaustion,” where people are more prone to distraction and loss of control. She also advised practicing foresight – imagining your future self and goals – to stay on track with everything you need to get done.

Know your chronotype. In her work, Mark has also found that people have personal attention rhythms that ebb and flow throughout the day. Monitoring these “attention peaks and troughs” should be used to effectively organize your tasks for the day. Keep a journal or understand your chronotype (your activity rhythm during the day) to find these key points of energy, she recommends.

“We have a tank of attentional resources that gets depleted when we constantly switch our attention,” Mark said. “And it gets depleted when we force ourselves to focus on something difficult and demanding for too long (without breaks).”

Protect your focus. Hari recommends protecting concentration by locking your phone in a time-lock container for specific periods of time. He uses it for three hours a day to complete writing tasks and suggests slowly building up to longer periods without your phone. He also suggests using an app that sets time limits on social media or websites you become addicted to.

Hari advocates for these individual behavioral changes, but he says these measures alone will not solve the problem. The problem is bigger than any of us individually.

“I feel like right now, like someone is throwing itching powder at us all day long,” Hari said. “And then they lean over and say, 'Hey, buddy, you should learn how to meditate so you don't itch all the time.'

“But you must stop sprinkling this harmful powder on me,” he said.

Now, some companies are trying to cash in on the need to focus. Mark recently attended the Association of Computing Machinery's CHI '24 conference—the premier conference in the field of human-computer interaction, showcasing cutting-edge technological designs—and was intrigued by the prototypes designed to capture our attention by making smartphones harder to use.

“There's just a lot of technology that makes using the phone harder, which I just find so ironic,” she said. “People are now realizing that we need to save our attention. Our attention is just sucked up by these devices. And so there are innovations now that make using (these devices) harder.”

Some people already change their phone's settings to grayscale to make it less visually appealing and addictive. Others change their phone multiple times to access social media by unlocking app-restricting usage. (However, if you set restrictions on most apps, you may need to lock your phone to control yourself.) And to increase privacy and avoid data tracking, some turn off personalized ads on iPhones or choose to delete the advertising ID on Android devices in settings.

It's important to fight back, Hari said. Although companies try to control your attention, you have the power to develop healthier habits and live a more present, fulfilling life, he noted. “We are citizens of democratic societies. And we are owners of our own minds. And together we can take it back if we want to,” he said.

“Sustained attention is at the core of all human achievements,” Hari said, noting that no athlete picks up their phone to check it in the middle of an Olympic competition. “When you regain your attention, it really feels like you've regained your superpowers.”