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Guardian

Guardian

Technology

Technology

Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back? - podcast

Guardian
Summary
Nutrition label

67% Informative

The Oxford English Dictionary announced its word of the year at the end of 2024 : brain rot’. The term relates to the supposedly negative effects of consuming social media content, but it struck a chord more widely with many of us who feel we just don’t have the mental capacity we once did. Gloria Mark , a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine , has been studying our waning attention spans for 20 years . She tells Madeleine Finlay why she believes our powers of concentration are not beyond rescue, and reveals her top tips for finding focus.

VR Score

60

Informative language

55

Neutral language

29

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

50

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

long-living

Source diversity

1

Affiliate links

no affiliate links