Getting kids to complete simple tasks often feels like an epic struggle. They tire and distract easily, flitting from one thing to another, forgetful, fidgeting, making mistakes, seemingly unable to control their thoughts, impulses and emotions.
Far from an isolated issue, the inability to hold sustained focus is a growing global problem, says Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. “We are in an enormous crisis of attention,” he says. “And it is particularly acute for children.”
The success of Hari’s multi-award-winning book, published in 2022, suggests short attention spans are something many resonate with. One survey of public opinion by Kings College London in 2021, found two-thirds of participants believed young people’s attention spans were worse than in the past; about half felt their own had deteriorated.
The rise in distraction
Little historic research on attention spans exists to draw comparisons from, though this hasn’t stopped academics from trying to measure the problem. In 2019, researchers at the Technical University of Denmark studied 40 years of movie ticket sales, 100 years of Google Books information and delved into old data from Reddit, Twitter, Wikipedia and Google Trends. They also dug out 25 years of citations of scientific publications. The researchers found popular cultural media items
