Attention Span

Outline

Attention Span (2023) reveals how our ability to focus has changed in the digital age. Based on decades of research, Gloria Mark shows that the average time people spend on one screen before switching has dropped to under a minute, and explains how constant switching raises stress and lowers performance. Rather than blaming ourselves, she offers practical strategies for regaining balance, focus, and well-being.

• Our ability to focus has changed in the digital age, and decades of research now document how.
• The average time people spend on one screen before switching has dropped to under a minute.
• Constant switching between screens raises stress and lowers performance.
• Struggling to focus is not a personal failing, so blaming ourselves is the wrong response.
• Practical strategies can restore balance, focus, and well-being.

Gloria Mark is an American psychologist and a Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. For more than two decades she has studied how people use digital technology and how it affects attention, stress, and productivity. She has also worked as a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research, and Attention Span is her first book for general readers.