Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Are Attention Spans Really Shrinking?

Transcript

Are Attention Spans Really Shrinking? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. What is it
0:08
Speaker 1: with our attention spans? Are they're getting worse? Is short
0:11
Speaker 1: form video content pushed into our lives by algorithms making
0:15
Speaker 1: our ability to focus on anything diminish? Is there any
0:20
Speaker 1: science that can help us? What's going on with kids
0:22
Speaker 1: and school and their ability to focus? Is just us?
0:26
Speaker 1: Is it a sign of the times? Is it our brains?
0:29
Speaker 1: Is tech the reason that everything is falling apart? Today
0:32
Speaker 1: it's a doctor's desk episode of the Happy Families Podcast
0:35
Speaker 1: where we have a look at a brand new study
0:36
Speaker 1: published in Nature, one of the world's leading science journals.
0:40
Speaker 1: Some researchers have been unpacking attention spans goldfish. I wonder
0:46
Speaker 1: we find out more next, including how we can help
0:50
Speaker 1: our kids to pay more attention. Oh and us too,
0:53
Speaker 1: It's right after this stay with us. Hello, Welcome to
0:58
Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast. You get real parenting solutions every
1:01
Speaker 1: single day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
1:04
Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Colson. We're the parents of six children
1:08
Speaker 1: whose attention spans sometimes troubleous, sometimes concern us. Have you
1:13
Speaker 1: said that, Kylie? I just started talking and I feel
1:15
Speaker 1: like I lost you as well? Are you with me?
1:16
Speaker 1: Have I got you for this doctor's Desk episode? Fully
1:19
Speaker 1: attentive and on board?
1:20
Speaker 2: You No, you lost me. You're giving me You lost
1:23
Speaker 2: me as soon as you said doctors, you're.
1:25
Speaker 1: Giving me that look that one of our daughters gives
1:27
Speaker 1: us through the top of the eyes, kind of like,
1:29
Speaker 1: are you're really doing this to me? All right? Today
1:31
Speaker 1: a conversation around attention spans. You don't know what this
1:35
Speaker 1: science is about. All you know is the general topic
1:37
Speaker 1: of today's podcast, which means that you get to ask
1:39
Speaker 1: the great questions. But I've got one for you. First.
1:42
Speaker 1: What have you heard? What would you understand would be
1:45
Speaker 1: going on with attention spans? What are people talking about
1:48
Speaker 1: when it comes to attention spans now that it's twenty
1:50
Speaker 1: twenty six and the world is so modern and technologically driven.
1:54
Speaker 2: I would suggest, based on the fact that nearly every
1:58
Speaker 2: other person I speak to is either being diagnosed with
2:01
Speaker 2: ADHD as an adult or has a child being diagnosed
2:05
Speaker 2: with ADHD, that it would seem attention spans are growing
2:11
Speaker 2: smaller and smaller by the day.
2:12
Speaker 1: Okay, so ADHD literally it's in the title attention deficit. Yeah,
2:18
Speaker 1: A regular disorder. So you're suggesting that the world's changing
2:21
Speaker 1: and people just can't concentrate like they used to.
2:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think it screens.
2:30
Speaker 1: Oh say more.
2:32
Speaker 2: I just can only go from my own personal experience,
2:35
Speaker 2: And I remember before I was a parent how attentive
2:39
Speaker 2: I was when I would go to a seminar, for instance,
2:42
Speaker 2: I could sit there and listen to someone speak to
2:44
Speaker 2: me for an hour and a half and be completely
2:47
Speaker 2: engrossed in what they were sharing. Once I became a parent,
2:52
Speaker 2: and I was obviously distracted a lot with a young baby.
2:57
Speaker 2: You needed to be fed, needed to be berthed, needed
2:59
Speaker 2: to be changed, needed to stand up in rock or whatever.
3:02
Speaker 2: And I found even once I got past that stage
3:06
Speaker 2: of parenting, I actually no longer could stay focused for
3:12
Speaker 2: that amount of time. Yeah.
3:13
Speaker 1: So do you think that parenting exhaustion the need to
3:17
Speaker 1: worry about the laundry, the cooking, the appointments, the library bag.
3:22
Speaker 2: I think it's the inability to be in the moment.
3:26
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Okay, So attention spans it.
3:29
Speaker 2: Because all of those things matter as a parent and
3:32
Speaker 2: as specifically as a mum. From my personal experience, I'm
3:36
Speaker 2: usually somewhere physically, but my mind is going one hundred
3:40
Speaker 2: miles an hour thinking about all of the other tasks
3:43
Speaker 2: that need to be completed before I get to sit
3:46
Speaker 2: down for the day.
3:47
Speaker 1: Discreens have anything to do with attention span reduction, as
3:50
Speaker 1: you're hypothesizing, I definitely think.
3:53
Speaker 2: They play a part, but I don't think that they're
3:54
Speaker 2: the cause.
3:55
Speaker 1: Okay, may I may I indulge myself with a little
3:59
Speaker 1: bit of doctor's desks. Cis Okay, here we go. So
4:01
Speaker 1: there's good news and bad news around it. First of all,
4:03
Speaker 1: the narrative that I hear all the time, and I
4:05
Speaker 1: certainly read it in a whole lot of blogs and
4:10
Speaker 1: articles and that sort of thing is that attention spans
4:12
Speaker 1: are diminishing. People keep on talking about how, thanks to
4:15
Speaker 1: short form video, we now have the attention span of
4:17
Speaker 1: a goldfish. We can't concentrate on anything for more than
4:20
Speaker 1: about eight seconds. There's also a whole lot of occupational
4:24
Speaker 1: and organizational psychology work talking about task switching and how
4:27
Speaker 1: because emails are always coming into our inbox and going ding,
4:30
Speaker 1: and we've got our slack messages and whatever else, there's
4:34
Speaker 1: never ending tasks switching and when you get off a task.
4:36
Speaker 1: It takes, depending on who you read and what you
4:39
Speaker 1: have heard, somewhere between eight and fifteen minutes to get
4:42
Speaker 1: back on task. Like task switching is costly, and we
4:45
Speaker 1: task switch every few minutes, which means that we're never
4:47
Speaker 1: fully on task. The whole premise, therefore, is that our
4:52
Speaker 1: attentional ability is dropping. But I've got good news and
4:57
Speaker 1: I've got bad news.
5:00
Speaker 2: Well that sounds like bad news, then well.
5:03
Speaker 1: That's the hypothesis. That's what people are saying. The bad
5:06
Speaker 1: news is this, we are very distracted. We're very, very
5:10
Speaker 1: very very distracted. Some data noun sugg just the average
5:15
Speaker 1: adults checking their phone north of one hundred times per day,
5:19
Speaker 1: which is just massive, and in fact, some data I've
5:21
Speaker 1: suggested could even be as high as two hundred times
5:24
Speaker 1: per day that we're checking our phone. So you talk
5:26
Speaker 1: about attention span, I'm doing something, it's boring me. What
5:29
Speaker 1: am I going to do? I'm going to open up
5:30
Speaker 1: my phone and see if I've got any notifications. And
5:32
Speaker 1: so therefore the idea is that our attention spans are
5:36
Speaker 1: dropping because we are not able to pay attention. The
5:38
Speaker 1: good news, though, the good news is that there is
5:42
Speaker 1: a very very big difference between our ability to pay
5:46
Speaker 1: attention and what we actually do in the real world
5:50
Speaker 1: when we're surrounded by distractions. We don't have any good
5:54
Speaker 1: evidence at all that attention spans have declined. In spite
5:58
Speaker 1: of all of the headlines and all the things that
6:00
Speaker 1: people are saying, We're not struggling to pay attention when
6:05
Speaker 1: the environment gives us something that is attention worthy.
6:09
Speaker 2: Wait, you watch a good movie exactly, for instance, and
6:12
Speaker 2: you can sit there and be fully engaged. You go
6:15
Speaker 2: to a musical and you're at the theater, you don't
6:18
Speaker 2: have any problems.
6:19
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, people aren't whipping out their phones in the theater.
6:21
Speaker 1: They sit there and they watch it, and they're fully
6:23
Speaker 1: engrossed and engaged. So what the research seems to be suggesting,
6:27
Speaker 1: And there was a brand new study in Nature recently
6:29
Speaker 1: that I'm referring to, But at twenty twenty four meta
6:32
Speaker 1: analysi as well, two hundred and eighty seven studies there
6:36
Speaker 1: spanning thirty one years from nineteen ninety to twenty twenty
6:39
Speaker 1: one showed again no change in attention abilities over time.
6:43
Speaker 1: In fact, adults got better at paying attention. So we
6:46
Speaker 1: don't have an attention span problem. We have a distraction problem.
6:48
Speaker 1: We have an environment problem, which means that if people
6:52
Speaker 1: are not paying attention, it's probably more to do with
6:55
Speaker 1: the environment than it is them, and that includes neurodivergence.
7:00
Speaker 1: By the way, I've made no secret on this podcast
7:02
Speaker 1: that I'm very, very hesitant to go too far down
7:05
Speaker 1: the neurodivergence pathway as an answer for everything. There's an
7:08
Speaker 1: excuse for everything. I don't pretend that ADHD isn't a thing,
7:11
Speaker 1: but what I argue very strongly is that if we
7:13
Speaker 1: get the environmental conditions right, the symptoms and behaviors associated
7:17
Speaker 1: with ADHD generally disappear or they reduce so much that
7:20
Speaker 1: they're no longer causing dysfunction. And what the research here
7:25
Speaker 1: around attention spans is suggesting is exactly the same. We
7:30
Speaker 1: don't have an attention span problem. We don't have an
7:32
Speaker 1: attention disorder. We have an environment challenge. That is, we
7:39
Speaker 1: get distracted because what's going on isn't meeting our attentional needs.
7:45
Speaker 1: Full stop. End of story. So after break, as we
7:48
Speaker 1: get really into the weeds of this conversation, we're going
7:51
Speaker 1: to talk about what we can do to make our
7:54
Speaker 1: environments less distracting, which means that whether we're neurodiversent or neurotypical,
8:00
Speaker 1: and our children will be able to provide a greater
8:04
Speaker 1: level of attention because there's a lower level of distraction
8:08
Speaker 1: to the stuff that needs to happen. Stay with this, Okay,
8:18
Speaker 1: this is the Happy Families podcast. We're back. Thanks so
8:20
Speaker 1: much for joining us as we have a look at
8:22
Speaker 1: the different ways that we can help to sustain attention,
8:26
Speaker 1: reduce distraction, and keep people focused on the stuff that matters.
8:31
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if you know that this is
8:33
Speaker 2: actually a parenting podcast and telling people to not have
8:36
Speaker 2: children in order to allay distractions. It's not going to
8:41
Speaker 2: be very helpful.
8:42
Speaker 1: You're such a joker. Before we talk about how to
8:45
Speaker 1: help attention to work better, help help people to stay
8:47
Speaker 1: on task, pay attention. There are three different kinds of
8:50
Speaker 1: attention that we really need to talk about.
8:52
Speaker 2: Well, can you define attention span? Yeah?
8:55
Speaker 1: So attention span is how long you can do these
8:57
Speaker 1: three things? Right? So number one sustained attention, and that
9:00
Speaker 1: is the ability to stick with something over time. Can
9:02
Speaker 1: I sustain my focus on this thing.
9:05
Speaker 2: As in a timeframe, as in half an hour? Yeah?
9:10
Speaker 2: Six months?
9:10
Speaker 1: Oh, no, No, we're talking about just here in the moment.
9:13
Speaker 2: Yes.
9:13
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Then there's this thing called selective attention, and that's
9:17
Speaker 1: where I'm able to say, I'm going to prioritize the
9:19
Speaker 1: thing that I'm working on over all the other things
9:21
Speaker 1: that are vying for my focus. So when I'm writing
9:23
Speaker 1: my books and articles, or preparing a podcast for that matter,
9:27
Speaker 1: my ability to say, yes, I know YouTube exists, Yes,
9:30
Speaker 1: I know that podcasts exist. Yes, I know that I've
9:33
Speaker 1: got a bicycle in the corner of my office that
9:35
Speaker 1: is runny.
9:36
Speaker 2: Yes, i know the dishes need doing and dinner needs
9:38
Speaker 2: to be cooked, but I've got my sewing machine out
9:40
Speaker 2: and i don't want to pack it away until I'm finished.
9:44
Speaker 1: Right, So there's all these things competing, and selective attention
9:47
Speaker 1: means that I'm going to put all of those things
9:48
Speaker 1: out of my mind and I'm just going to do
9:50
Speaker 1: the one thing that matters most. I'm really good at that,
9:52
Speaker 1: So sustained attention and selective attention, I'm selectively sustaining my
9:56
Speaker 1: attention on the one thing that needs to be there.
9:58
Speaker 1: And executive control is sort of an amplifier of all
10:01
Speaker 1: of this. This is how we pay attention hold the
10:03
Speaker 1: right stuff in our mind, focus on what's important, tune
10:06
Speaker 1: out the distractions, and that kind of thing.
10:08
Speaker 2: Not so good at that.
10:10
Speaker 1: Well, all of them work together to help us to
10:12
Speaker 1: have an attention span. But that's why we reach for
10:15
Speaker 1: our phone, right because if we are thinking, I'm not
10:18
Speaker 1: really into what's going on, I don't want to pay
10:20
Speaker 1: attention to it. I'm feeling a bit distracted. I'm feeling
10:23
Speaker 1: a bit overwhelmed. I just need a break. By the way,
10:25
Speaker 1: it's a terrible way to take a break. Your brain
10:27
Speaker 1: doesn't get a break when you pull your phone out.
10:30
Speaker 1: That's what's going on.
10:31
Speaker 2: It's so interesting. A few weeks ago we talked about
10:34
Speaker 2: this on the podcast. I surprised you with a date
10:37
Speaker 2: night out and we went and did pottery, and you
10:41
Speaker 2: looked at me like, what are you doing right? And
10:44
Speaker 2: yet two hours disappeared in the blink.
10:48
Speaker 1: Of an eye lost myself in it.
10:50
Speaker 2: You didn't think once to pick up your phone. Oh no,
10:52
Speaker 2: you didn't even actually want to have a conversation with me.
10:55
Speaker 2: You were just so engrossed in creating and being right.
11:00
Speaker 1: It wasn't much of a date night, was it.
11:01
Speaker 2: When I would make it was so much fun because
11:03
Speaker 2: I got to see you in a completely different light,
11:06
Speaker 2: Like I get to watch you when you're on stage
11:10
Speaker 2: and you're talking to people and your whole being lights up,
11:13
Speaker 2: like you love doing what you're doing, and you're completely
11:16
Speaker 2: in the moment in that space.
11:17
Speaker 1: So that's selective attention and sustained attention and a whole
11:20
Speaker 1: lot of executive function going on, but.
11:21
Speaker 2: You're really switched on. Yeah, this was a totally different
11:25
Speaker 2: experience where it was almost like you were able to
11:27
Speaker 2: switch off.
11:28
Speaker 1: I was tuned in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So let's
11:32
Speaker 1: about me and more about what it's interesting as well.
11:34
Speaker 1: When you're doing pottery, you can't pick up your phone.
11:38
Speaker 2: I tried because I had to get some I had
11:40
Speaker 2: to get some footage to prove to everybody that you
11:43
Speaker 2: actually did it and enjoyed it.
11:45
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true.
11:46
Speaker 2: But it did make a mess.
11:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. So we're running short on time.
11:51
Speaker 1: The takeaway here before we talk about how to create
11:53
Speaker 1: an environment that reduces distraction is simply to say that
11:58
Speaker 1: we are not losing our ability to pay it a time.
12:00
Speaker 1: If anything, our attention spans are as good as, if
12:02
Speaker 1: not better than they ever have been.
12:04
Speaker 2: Is it because we're filling our lives with things that
12:06
Speaker 2: don't have meaning like this mind like it's just all mundane,
12:12
Speaker 2: meaningless tasks that don't.
12:14
Speaker 1: They're not elevating us. They're not they're not lifting We're putting.
12:18
Speaker 2: Our time and energy into things that aren't actually fulfilling us.
12:21
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because it's so funny. You talk to somebody
12:23
Speaker 1: who gets out of the garden and they're like, I
12:25
Speaker 1: can lose a day in the garden, I can lose
12:27
Speaker 1: half a day, I can lose an hour or whatever,
12:28
Speaker 1: because it's one of those things where I'm just going
12:31
Speaker 1: to pay attention to what I'm doing. I'm in the moment,
12:34
Speaker 1: and it's so good for us. So I wanted, just
12:37
Speaker 1: in the last minute or to talk about some strategies
12:40
Speaker 1: for how we can reclaim our attention, reduce distraction.
12:45
Speaker 2: Can we actually improve it?
12:47
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to improve our attention span
12:49
Speaker 1: so much as a general rules, get the environment. It
12:52
Speaker 1: will improve simply by making the environment less distracting.
12:56
Speaker 2: Okay, so we go back to my original statements, and
12:59
Speaker 2: we have children in the house, how do you reduce distraction?
13:02
Speaker 1: And part of that is also making sure that the
13:04
Speaker 1: tasks you do are the kinds of things that you
13:07
Speaker 1: want to pay attention to, and life is not always
13:09
Speaker 1: like that. There's a whole lot of stuff that we
13:11
Speaker 1: have to do that is not like the.
13:13
Speaker 2: Dishes and the laundry and cooking and cleaning.
13:16
Speaker 1: I quite like doing the dishes. I kind of get
13:18
Speaker 1: lost in the sink.
13:19
Speaker 2: I haven't done them for a while.
13:20
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I did them at lunch yesterday, thank
13:23
Speaker 1: you very much. And there's been a lot going on
13:24
Speaker 1: in our lives lately. I'm feeling a little bit targeted
13:28
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Kylie technical strategies. I've removed social
13:32
Speaker 1: media from my devices. It's not on my computer, it's
13:35
Speaker 1: not on my phone. I just don't have access to
13:37
Speaker 1: social media anymore. We still have the social media accounts
13:39
Speaker 1: because the team has to run that for me, but
13:41
Speaker 1: I'm not on there. Not everybody's willing to do that,
13:44
Speaker 1: and that makes sense. But you can turn off your notifications.
13:47
Speaker 1: That makes a huge difference, so that you're only getting
13:50
Speaker 1: telephone calls and text messages. They're pretty much the unly
13:52
Speaker 1: notifications that I get. I did turn on Slack because
13:55
Speaker 1: sometimes the team needs me and I do have to
13:57
Speaker 1: be responsive to my team, but fortunately that's not a
14:00
Speaker 1: major distraction. You can block distracting websites. I use the
14:04
Speaker 1: Freedom app on my phone. Well, I don't need to
14:07
Speaker 1: use it anymo because I've got rid of all the distractions.
14:08
Speaker 1: But the Freedom app and similar kinds of things are useful.
14:14
Speaker 1: We've given our daughter a dumb phone and that's been
14:17
Speaker 1: really helpful as well.
14:18
Speaker 2: Well, it's not even a dumb phone.
14:19
Speaker 1: It's a land I've got a landline. Yeah, so that
14:23
Speaker 1: works really well. There's a bunch of things that you
14:25
Speaker 1: can do behaviorally. I really like the whole I'm just
14:29
Speaker 1: going to work really solidly for the next twenty five
14:31
Speaker 1: minutes or forty five minutes or eighty five minutes, and
14:34
Speaker 1: then I'm going to give myself a five minute break
14:36
Speaker 1: or a fifteen minute break. So you just say no
14:38
Speaker 1: distractions until this task is done.
14:41
Speaker 2: I put my phone on do not disturb. It's on
14:42
Speaker 2: do not disturb most of the time.
14:44
Speaker 1: Great one yep. Another thing that I find is really
14:47
Speaker 1: really good is that if you just do what you're doing,
14:50
Speaker 1: but do it in a new location, so you kind
14:52
Speaker 1: of get used to all the things that can distract
14:54
Speaker 1: you in one environment, so go to another environment and
14:56
Speaker 1: just focus. I used to do this when I was
14:58
Speaker 1: writing or doing my doctorate. I would go to the
15:01
Speaker 1: library at the university, or I would even go and
15:03
Speaker 1: get on a train, because once you're on a train,
15:06
Speaker 1: there's nothing else you can do except get the work done.
15:08
Speaker 1: I'd pay for a ticket and sit on a train
15:10
Speaker 1: for an hour and a half ago in one direction.
15:12
Speaker 1: Then I'd get off at the train station and an
15:15
Speaker 1: hour and a half back in the other direction, and
15:17
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how much work I would get done
15:19
Speaker 1: in that time. Obviously, that's not going to work for everybody,
15:22
Speaker 1: because we're always in different so we have children, yeah,
15:25
Speaker 1: and sometimes we can't get out of the house. Like
15:27
Speaker 1: the ironing. You can't take the inning with you on
15:29
Speaker 1: the train so that you can get the ironing.
15:30
Speaker 2: Does anyone iron these days? Except for me? Every time
15:33
Speaker 2: I talk to people, they look at me like I'm weird. Really, yep,
15:36
Speaker 2: they don't iron. I couldn't survive without a nine.
15:39
Speaker 1: And the last thing that I'm going to suggest is
15:42
Speaker 1: something that I learned years ago, Like when I was
15:44
Speaker 1: doing a psychology course I reckon twenty years ago. They
15:47
Speaker 1: talked about how when you get the urge to do something,
15:51
Speaker 1: you just sort of ride the urge, but you don't
15:54
Speaker 1: actually indulge in it. So you say, I'm beginning to
15:56
Speaker 1: notice that I'm feeling like I should pull out my phone.
15:58
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a really life sentence.
16:00
Speaker 1: I know. But when you say that to yourself, you're
16:02
Speaker 1: sort of standing outside yourself. You're noticing the urge, but
16:05
Speaker 1: you don't pull the phone out, And then you make
16:07
Speaker 1: a commitment to yourself. You just say, if I still
16:09
Speaker 1: have that urge to pull out my phone in the
16:10
Speaker 1: next in ten minutes, then I'll give myself a break
16:13
Speaker 1: and I'll have a look at it. But right now
16:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to just let the urge be there while
16:17
Speaker 1: I keep doing what I've committed to do. Folks on
16:20
Speaker 1: my child, cook the dinner, whatever the thing is, and
16:23
Speaker 1: ten minutes later, you've usually forgotten because you get back
16:26
Speaker 1: into you become really involved and mindful and present in
16:29
Speaker 1: the thing that you're doing. So there are some ideas
16:31
Speaker 1: to help to minimize distractions. I hope they're useful, but
16:35
Speaker 1: really the main take our message from this Doctor's Desk
16:37
Speaker 1: episode is that attention spans are not shrinking. The difficulty
16:42
Speaker 1: that we have is that our environments becoming more distracting,
16:45
Speaker 1: and if we improve our environments, we find that attention
16:48
Speaker 1: spans go way back up to where they should be,
16:52
Speaker 1: could be, would be if we've let them.
16:54
Speaker 2: I'm going back to my bubble, Your bubble, what bubble
16:57
Speaker 2: where there's no distractions?
16:59
Speaker 1: Do you I like bubbles? The Happy Families podcast is
17:02
Speaker 1: produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides
17:05
Speaker 1: our additional research and admin support. If you'd like more
17:08
Speaker 1: info to make your family happier, visitors at happy families
17:11
Speaker 1: dot com dot a