What screens are doing to your ability to think

01The goldfish myth, cleared up first

You have probably heard it: humans now have an attention span of just eight seconds, shorter than a goldfish. It gets repeated in articles, podcasts, presentations, and corporate workshops. There is one problem. No credible evidence supports it.

When researchers and journalists tried to trace the claim, it led back to marketing materials and unsourced internet statistics, not actual research. The BBC ran a thorough debunking, and the goldfish figure itself is biologically meaningless for human attention anyway. Yet the myth is sticky: a 2022 survey found about half of UK adults still believe it.

02The real problem isn't your attention span

Imagine trying to read a book while, every few minutes, someone taps your shoulder, then calls your name, then shows you a video, then asks a question. You would struggle, not because your attention disappeared, but because you kept getting interrupted. That is much closer to modern digital life than any goldfish.

Multitasking is part of the trap. Many people pride themselves on it, checking email in meetings, replying to messages while working. It feels efficient. But the brain does not really do several demanding things at once. Most of what we call multitasking is rapid task-switching, moving attention back and forth, and every switch carries a cost.

That cost has a name: attention residue. When you switch from one task to another, part of your attention stays attached to the first one. You answer an email mid-report, return to the report, and a piece of your mind is still on the email. The researcher Sophie Leroy described and measured this in 2009, and it is one of the more solid findings in the field. The leftover mental baggage is what makes the next task harder, especially when the first was interrupted before you finished it.

03The cost of constant interruptions

A notification lasts a second; its effect lasts longer. Even when you do not respond, your brain starts asking who it was and whether you should check. That small loop consumes attention, which is a limited resource. It is why many productivity experts focus on reducing interruptions rather than trying to summon more motivation.

You have probably read that it takes exactly 23 minutes to recover from an interruption. Be a little skeptical of that one. It is repeated everywhere but is surprisingly hard to trace to a solid primary source.

04The smartphone question

Can simply having your phone nearby affect concentration? One widely discussed study said yes. Ward and colleagues, in 2017, found that participants performed worse on cognitive tasks when their phones were visible on the desk than when the phones were in another room, even with the phone silent and face down. They called it "brain drain," and the implication was striking: your phone might consume mental resources even when you are not using it.

But the story does not end there. Later replication attempts produced mixed results. A 2022 study found little or no effect, and a 2024 study failed to reproduce the original finding entirely.

05Why deep work feels rare

Most knowledge work now happens in fragmented environments. Emails arrive constantly, messages appear instantly, meetings interrupt projects, and projects interrupt each other. The result is a workday that feels busy without always being productive.

Deep work, the term Cal Newport popularized, is the opposite: long enough stretches of uninterrupted time for your brain to fully engage with a meaningful challenge. Not five minutes, not ten. And it is becoming rare precisely because the tools we use for work are also the ones competing for our attention.

That scarcity is also an opportunity. In earlier generations, information was scarce. Today information is abundant and attention is scarce, which flips the equation. People who can concentrate deeply tend to learn faster, produce better work, and make fewer mistakes, not because they are smarter, but because they can stay engaged long enough to think clearly.

06How to protect your focus

Most people track their time. Few track their attention. Start with three honest questions: what interrupts me most often, which of those interruptions are truly necessary, and which are self-inflicted? Many people discover their biggest distractions come from habits, not external demands. Then make one change at a time.

Small improvements in focus often create larger results than complicated productivity systems. If the pull to check is the hard part, our guide to why apps are so hard to put down explains the design behind it, and the digital detox guide covers how to reduce it for good.