[Book] Attention Span
Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
By Gloria Mark
Hannover Square Press
January 2023, 368 pages
We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we’re interrupted by others.
In Attention Span, psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such as:
- Why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity
- How social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans
- What drains our mental resources and how to refuel them
- The four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them
While the concept of “flow” has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital world: kinetic attention. This book reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find health and wellness in our everyday lives.
Dr. Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. She is a two-time recipient of the Google Research Award and has received a prestigious NSF CAREER award. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology.
The book has been extensively covered. Here some reviews and interviews in alphabetical order; CNBC, CNN, Columbia Magazine, El Pais, Forbes, New Scientist, Newsweek, Psychology Today, Salon, The Guardian, The New York Times, Time.
