What to Expect:

Throughout time, adults have been frustrated by… oh look at that cloud… just kidding :) But really, there is this myth that kids have shorter attention spans than ever before. This is fueled in part by a “study” that apparently doesn’t exist, but nevertheless got picked up by the news. Movies are sometimes used as a metric for shortening attention spans, but it is likely an artifact of competing for people’s time. Also, goldfish are a terrible comparison for attention. In short, no kids are not losing their attention span. Actually, we are probably getting increasingly efficient at identifying and regulating our attention to things that are or aren’t worth our time. Myth busted.

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Links for Today:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790 (Good investigative reporting on the lack of evidence for shortening attention spans)
https://medium.com/mind-cafe/correcting-the-myth-of-the-shortened-attention-span-92817c61fba8 (Article summarizing study on shortening attention span and why it’s not true)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/10/28/parents-dont-buy-myth-short-attention-span-column/74213712/ (Blue’s Clues as an example of how attention spans are relevant to the subject at hand)
https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/ (The entirely too credulous study of shortening attention spans as reported by Time Magazine)
https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/ (The entirely too credulous discussion about shortening shot lengths in movies as representative of shortening attention spans)

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The Why We Do What We Do Crew

Scott "Abraham" Miller | Host & Producer

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141 | Are Kids Losing Their Attention Span? | Why We Do What We Do