Don’t Let the Goldfish Win

Work Your Attention Span

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

It used to be when somebody wished to insult your ability to pay attention, they would say you have the attention span of a goldfish. Naturally this inspired a number of studies that found the average attention span of a goldfish is in the range of 9 seconds. That is indeed a very short period of time. Observing the life of a goldfish, you seldom see them enjoy good literature, long conversations, introspective journaling, nor expressions through painting or drawing. 9 seconds is just enough time to remember that some food was sprinkled in the fishbowl or to swim a different direction to avoid your grumpy goldfish roomie. Neural research has also been done on average humans. Dr. Amen of Amen Clinics, who knows more about brains than almost anyone, estimates that most people in the U.S. have attention spans in the range of 8 seconds long.

The Goldfish are Winning?

As we examine all the splendid things people have done with their brains over the course of history, we must come to the logical conclusion that the average length of the human attention span was once much, much longer because our lives depended on it. Carefully guarding livestock, conscientiously weaving cloth, crafting, sculpting, cooking, writing, gardening, preserving, and inventing new ways to do all of these things better require much longer attention spans than 8 seconds at a time. Spoiled by the luxury of not living minute by minute to survive, most of us have more free time than our ancestors.

With free time came entertainment. A zillion things to grab our attention but very few things hold our attention. The luxury of the modern world makes it possible to survive a distracted lifestyle, mostly unharmed by our lack of attention. Some of us can afford to bounce back and forth between entertainments while we wait for our food to be delivered or our appliances to do the hardest chores. An attention spans less than that of a tiny fish seems like a setback in human progress. How do we do better?

Read Don’t Watch

The current generation typically doesn’t enjoy reading that much because it is difficult for them to maintain focus long enough to become engaged in a good story, much less good information. The average reader needs around 30 seconds just to read this far in this blog. Many will have stopped reading or have gotten distracted several times already. Consider the implications of how much educators might expect students to accomplish in a single assignment!

Around a third of people under the age of 20 consider themselves avid readers but admit that they typically read eight or fewer books per year even though they are enjoying a period of life that is uniquely suited to reading books as students. Self-described avid readers from older generations easily consume roughly twice as many books per year even with a more demanding schedule. Today, average high school students in literature courses with comparatively moderate reading assignments are overwhelmed by what would have been considered light reading five or certainly ten years ago. Most high school students never complete a single book and even fewer college students. Literacy is sliding backwards.

Reading for pleasure is the best test for a strong attention span. If you’ve never developed the habit, you should. You will at once encounter two surprising facts about yourself. First, you’ll discover that at first you will struggle to read for longer than a minute without getting distracted, even when you are reading a subject of interest to you. Extended reading is a muscle that must be worked and developed. Second, you’ll discover that once you can start reading with intensity, your life will be greatly improved. Deep engagement in excellent storytelling is deeply rewarding. Watching a story or hearing a story doesn’t work the same part of our brains as reading a story. Challenge yourself to consume entertainment in book form instead of screen or audio form.

Screen time (short-form entertainment, apps, games, TikTok, movies) have been designed for—and are much to blame for—the attention span crisis. Programming produced today is intentionally built around our 8 second attention spans to recapture our focus every few seconds with sounds, lights, and sound. “Older” movies from even a decade ago are considered unwatchable without the constant flash and glitter so there’s your answer about why companies remake so many classics. Recorded media is a little bit better (music, podcasts, books “on tape”) but still must multi-task instead of focus attentively. To extend your attention span, read rather than watch and if you must, listen with focus.    

Green Entertainment

I hope you like this term because I just made it up. Green entertainment always builds longer attention spans. How well does your soccer match go if the goalie has an eight second attention span? How does your hike progress if you can’t recall which direction to walk after a short break? How’s the chess match with your sibling turn out if you are staring at your phone instead of planning your next move? All of these are unplugged “green” entertainments.

If you grow your attention span simply by engaging in team sports, mentally stimulating logic games, gardening, hiking or a zillion other engaging tasks, you also enjoy the side benefits and gaining new skills, gaining physical strength, and maintaining appropriate distance from the snack drawer in your house. Want to double all of that benefit? Engage in green entertainment without electronic input of any kind. Yes, this means you leave earphones and devices at home. If you bring your phone “just so you can play some music” you’ll fall back into engaging mainly with your phone instead of your teammates or task. Engage your focus fully instead of splitting it with recorded media.    

Memorization Isn’t a Dirty Word

If you hang out in modern educational circles for even a few minutes, you’ll get hit with snarky comments about any educational approach that forces children to “merely memorize” material. Initially this was a reaction to approaches that never ventured beyond basics when the basics were the periodic table, the U.S. presidents, or the mathematical formulae of algebra or geometry. Sure! What’s the point of memorizing these things if you go no further? At some point, memorization was dismissed entirely, not because it is a thing that won’t serve us well as we educate ourselves throughout our lives, but because memorization became impossible in a world in which students have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.

Memorization is an excellent way to build your own attention span, but it is also a necessary skill to master anything complex. I assigned memorization tasks to my elementary age children to build that muscle. Do they still remember those poems, presidents, or geography? Probably not but when they move into the logic stage around age 13 and the rhetoric stage around age 16 or 17, they will prosper greatly having built that mental muscle and never letting it atrophy throughout life. Learn how to fill your brain with the intellectual ammunition you need to pursue more complex subjects.