Does technology affect attention span and is that a bad thing?

Netflix, my email, Blogger, Google, The Guardian, and Facebook. 

These are all the tabs that are currently open on my computer. Not to mention the application that is currently running on my phone. 

In today's society it takes only a few seconds to reach a completely different area of the internet. I'll admit, I don't have the greatest attention span. I am tempted as much as anyone to pull out my phone during class, or check social media a thousand times while I'm working on an assignment, because maybe someone is trying to get in contact with me! This is a growing concern, as some professors demand cell phones to be turned off in class and their students respond with a collective eye roll. 

The National Center for Biotechnology Information, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the Associate Press have verified that the average attention span between 2000 and 2013 have decreased by four seconds with the increase in external stimulation, specifically technology such as smart phones and laptops. The average attention span of the people surveyed is now less than a goldfish's. The CDC found a statistic that the number of children diagnosed with ADHD has increased from 7.8 percent to 11 percent between 2003 and 2011. It would be misguided to assume that the increase in technology would cause a rise in ADHD. However, it stands to reason that the increased stimulation would make it increasingly difficult for kids with ADHD to focus, leading to an increase in the severity of the disorder. During the second lecture of my Materials class, Professor Eitel quoted a statistic that the focus time of students in a lecture setting is, at maximum, 15 minutes (I couldn’t find this study, but it is also quoted in Time, and a presentation at Columbia). This fact is the reason why he intends to make this class more interactive.

It can be argued that an average shorter attention span is due to positive aspects of technology. Students are not required to have extensive attention spans because it takes less time to perform tasks. Thanks to search engines, research takes considerably less time. It takes less than a second for Google to drudge up tens of millions of results from a single search. People can respond almost instantaneously to a query posed to them by a peer through text or email. Some televisions even have the ability to split screens between two or more channels so people can easily switch between TV shows or, in the case of my father, sports stations. For someone like my father who does not have the time to focus on a two-hour long TV program, and for someone whose job it is to understand what is going on in the world of sports, most of which is happening simultaneously, multitasking technology is necessary. A short attention span might not necessarily be a detrimental to people in today’s society.

Eight seconds of attention span is a very small window of concentrated focus, and if you read through this whole blog post without checking your phone or clicking on another tab, I applaud you. Technological advancements create the powerful temptation to check if you have any new Facebook notifications or favorited Tweets, leading to procrastination and even forgetfulness. I cannot count the number of times I have forgotten to send a text message or email because I would open another app right after receiving the message. In situations like that, a short attention span becomes detrimental to important tasks. However, a short attention span grants the ability for people to multitask, constantly focusing on one thing or another, and could be due to the fact technology speeds up the process of completing assignments. A shorter attention span might be the mind’s way of adapting to the constant influx and ease of access of that information. 

Sources: http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/mar/11/technology-internet-pupil-attention-teaching
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html