Humans Have Shorter Attention Spans Than Goldfish

I just read a new study that explains EVERYTHING about Glenn Pitcher. I tease Glenn all the time for his awful attention span, but now it all makes sense. According to a new report from Microsoft, humans now have shorter attention spans than goldfish. I believe it.

Apparently goldfish can concentrate on something for 9 seconds, while humans can now only hold focus on something for 8 seconds, which is a decrease in four seconds since 2000.

The reason for our reduced attention spans shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. We can blame it on technology. We live in a world where we're plugged in all the time and have actually become better at multi-tasking than we are at focusing on just one task.

"Ten years ago, the only thing I checked was my phone and my one email," says Dr. Larry Rosen, an expert in technology addiction and professor at California State University. "Now it's a constant need to check in that's causing our problem. It's anxiety about not keeping up."