The Myth of the Shrinking Attention Span

By Shed Siliman

Spring 2025

A few weeks ago, a YouTube short caught my attention. The short was yet another commentary on how Gen Z supposedly can’t focus on a particular thing for more than a few seconds. I scrolled through the YouTube comments and noticed a refrain: studies prove it.  Everyone’s attention span is shorter, studies prove, as we become more deeply immersed in a digital, screen-filled world (insert unknown source here). Today’s teens, studies prove, bear the brunt of this crisis with an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish.

Something about that claim gnawed at me. After years of experience in the field of educational development, I knew the reality was more complicated than these sweeping generalizations. Where were these studies everyone kept referencing? What evidence existed behind this seemingly universal belief about our shrinking ability to focus?

I suspected I might find only a few studies to support the claim. I was not prepared, however, to find absolutely no evidence.

Tracing the Myth’s Origin

My investigation began with tracing the origin of the attention span claim. Every publication seemed to reference a singular source: a 2015 report by the consumer insight team at Microsoft Canada. The report has since been taken down by Microsoft, but a reuploaded copy is available. The report cited a marketing company, Statistics Brain, who claimed that our attention had decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds in 2015—conveniently shorter than a goldfish’s supposed 9-second attention span. But there was no peer-reviewed research behind these numbers. No empirical source. Just a claim repeated so often that it eventually became accepted as truth.

The only substantive research I found came from Gloria Mark, who studied digital screen use and multitasking. Her work suggested that people today switch between screens more rapidly (see her studies on attention to screens in 2004, 2012, and 2016), but this hardly proves a universal decline in human attention. The notion that attention can be measured in simple “spans” is itself questionable: as Yoo et al. (2022) state, “there is no singular neural measure of a person’s overall attentional functioning across tasks,” adding, “attention is not a unitary construct but rather multi-faceted” (p. 782).

As an animal lover, I was thrilled to discover that even the goldfish myth was built on shaky ground. Fish neurologist Culum Brown shared a fascinating insight with LiveScience in 2021: despite widespread claims about goldfish having impossibly short memories, thousands of studies show these tiny creatures can remember information for weeks, months, and even years.

The goldfish myth, Brown explained, stems from a combination of human ignorance about animal intelligence and a kind of collective psychological defense mechanism. Pet owners perpetuate the idea of the forgetful fish to avoid confronting a difficult question: What if I’m not providing a stimulating enough environment?

The “shrinking attention span” narrative is just another neuromyth.

This revelation struck me as remarkably similar to how we talk about human attention spans. Like many widespread beliefs about learning and thinking, the “shrinking attention span” narrative is just another neuromyth—an incorrect belief about brain functioning which justifies teaching practices. Neuromyths are incredibly persistent. Despite robust research, they continue to circulate in educational spaces: the notion of left-brain versus right-brain thinkers, the myth of learning styles, the belief that we only use 10 percent of our brains.

Building Teaching Practices that Go Beyond Myths

These ideas persist not because they’re true, but because they serve a psychological purpose. For educators feeling disconnected or frustrated with today’s students, it’s easier to blame a supposed generational attention deficit than to critically examine our own teaching methods. The real question becomes: What if the problem isn’t students’ focus, but our ability to engage them?

Just as pet owners might use the “forgetful fish” myth to avoid reflecting on their caregiving, educators might use the “short attention span” narrative to sidestep a challenging self-assessment. What if I’m not an engaging teacher? What if my methods aren’t connecting with students?

Instead of falling into the trap of generalizing students or framing their engagement through a lens of deficit, we can honor and leverage the attention they do bring to class. Our educational goals shouldn’t be to fight against perceived limitations, but to create learning experiences that naturally draw and sustain student curiosity. Peer-reviewed research supports this approach: context matters more than any supposed attention “span.” We’re most focused when we feel personally connected to and genuinely excited by a task. Our challenge as educators is to design experiences that tap into those intrinsic moments of engagement. We also have to acknowledge that all students aren’t the same, and each will have a different way of learning, engaging, and dedicating attention to class (also known as neurodiversity).

This is where thoughtful pedagogical design becomes essential—creating flexible learning experiences that can adapt to students’ varied cognitive needs. In his book Distracted, pedagogy scholar James Lang argues that everyone has limited attention, and the key is to design learning experiences that strategically manage cognitive load. By alternating between high-focus and low-stakes activities, we can create more dynamic, inclusive learning environments.

I’ll offer an example of such a lesson from my own 75-minute class sessions. I open with a casual overview of the week’s learning objectives, an outline for the day’s lesson, and a reminder of relevant concepts from the last session (~5 minutes). I lead 15–20 minutes of interactive lecture to introduce new concepts. Students then transition to small group activities or discussion (~10 minutes), allowing them both a mental break from lecture and a low-stakes opportunity to practice new concepts. Students refocus their energy when they report out from their small groups and debrief in a full class discussion (15–20 minutes). A short video, review of an image gallery, audio snippet, or other form of media brings these concepts to life (5–10 minutes). The class wraps up with each student sharing lingering questions in an exit ticket (~5 minutes). This rhythm appeals to the natural ebb and flow of attention, as well as the varied ways students engage with new material.

Lang’s approach meshes well with Universal Design for Learning (UDL). By embracing UDL, instructors can create multiple pathways for engagement, ensuring that every student can connect with course concepts in ways that resonate most powerfully with their unique cognitive style. This approach transforms potential barriers into opportunities for deeper, more personalized learning.

Good Research Practice Can Avoid the Perpetuation of Myths

Instructors often task students with checking their sources, but my deep dive into research on attention spans reminded me that it’s just as important for instructors! This is especially crucial when said research influences not only how instructors teach, but how students learn. These myths can become self-fulfilling prophecies in our classrooms. Repeatedly hearing that their generation “can’t focus” may catalyze students to believe it themselves. Labeling students can shape their behavior, as demonstrated by the aforementioned myth of learning styles. If a person is told they’re a ‘visual learner’ enough times, they might start avoiding nonvisual methods of engaging with material. The power of these myths lies not just in how they shape teaching practices, but in how they can limit students’ own beliefs about their capabilities.

Following this line of thinking, we can reframe neuromyths as excellent teaching opportunities. Instead of just telling students these myths have been debunked, we can invite them into the investigation. I can imagine talking my class through the same process that led to my own discovery, starting with YouTube comments and following breadcrumbs back to a source. After failing to find any evidence for the claims in academic databases, the class would search for the citations supporting the claim in newspaper and magazine articles. We’d take the opportunity to distinguish between marketing reports, news outlets, and peer-reviewed research. Together, the class could examine how claims about teaching and learning mutate as they travel through social media, news headlines, and eventually make their way into our collective understanding. In doing so, the class wouldn’t just collaboratively dispel a myth—we’d practice crucial research skills, which are especially useful for pushing past superficial claims.

Attention span myths are more than just inaccurate—they’re a form of generational gaslighting.

In the end, my YouTube short rabbit hole revealed something profound. Attention span myths are more than just inaccurate—they’re a form of generational gaslighting. For centuries, older generations have portrayed youth as less focused, lazier, and more technology dependent. But what if we’re simply witnessing evolution in how we learn and engage? Perhaps today’s students are ready for more active learning opportunities, authentic assessments, and metacognitive reflections, all of which are supported by an abundance of research. Every generalization about student attention can be reframed as an invitation—to be more creative, more compassionate, and more curious about the different strengths among our students.

Author Profile

Shadia (Shed) Siliman (they/them or she/her) is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Sociology and a Teaching and Learning Specialist at CTRL. Their research and teaching explores Women of Color intersectional scholarship and activism as tools of justice.

References

ASCD. (2017). Personalization and UDL: A perfect match. ASCD, 74(6).

Baker, Harry. (2021, May 22). Do goldfish really have a 3-second memory? LiveScience.

Baumer, N., and Frueh, J. (2021, November 23). What is neurodiversity? Harvard Health.

Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University.

Center for Teaching Excellence. (2024, March 15). Exit tickets. Boston College.

Centre for Educational Neuroscience. (n.d.). We only use 10% of our brains.

CTRL Faculty Resources. (n.d.). Accessible course design: Universal design for learning. American University.

CTRL Faculty Resources. (n.d.). Active learning. American University.

CTRL Faculty Resources. (n.d.). Designing meaningful assessments. American University.

Gonzalez, V. M., and Mark, G. (2004). “Constant, constant, multi-tasking craziness”: Managing multiple working spheres. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 6(1), 113–120.

Immordino-Yang, M. H., Christodoulou, J. A., and Singh, V. (2012). Rest is not idleness: Implications of the brain’s default mode for human development and education. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 352–364.

Lang, J. M. (2020). Distracted: Why students can’t focus and what you can do about it. Basic Books.

Maybin, S. (2017, March 10). Busting the attention span myth. BBC News.

Mark, G., Iqbal, S. T., Czerwinski, M., Johns, P., and Sano, A. (2016). Neurotics can’t focus: An in situ study of online multitasking in the workplace. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1739–1744.

Mark, G. J., Voida, S., and Cardello, A. V. (2012). “A pace not dictated by electrons”: An empirical study of work without email. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 555–564.

Microsoft Canada. (2015). Attention spans. Spring.

Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Learning styles as a myth. Yale University.

Torrijos-Muelas, M., González-Villora, S., and Bodoque-Osma, A. R., (2021). The persistence of neuromyths in the educational settings: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 11.

Trends in STEM. (2019, December 12). Debunking the left vs. right brain myth.

Yoo, K., Rosenberg, M. D., Kwon, Y. H., Lin, Q., Avery, E. W., Sheinost, D., Constable, R. T., and Chun, M. M. (2022). A brain-based general measure of attention. Natural Human Behavior, 6(6), 782–795.