A fluorescent yellow book with the words ATTENTION SPAN written boldly across the cover cannot fail to catch the eye of a generation raised on clickbait. Given that the author, Dr. Gloria Mark, is a world-renowned researcher who has spent decades documenting how our devices drive us to distraction, the striking and alluring nature of the book’s cover can be no accident.
Every decade or so, I read a nonfiction book that so profoundly changes my viewpoint, is so chock full of useful information that feels “bang-on”, that I am compelled to fill the inside cover with notes to ensure I don’t forget the useful lessons learned. Gloria Mark’s “Attention Span” is the latest among the very select few that have earned this accolade. (Others included Lila by Robert M. Pirsig of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance fame; Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel; Stephen Jay Gould’s Ever Since Darwin; and Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden.)
Chock full of painstakingly gathered observations, clever insights and hard evidence, Dr. Mark’s book carefully documents how and why we have slowly lost our ability to pay attention as our devices—with their notifications and addictive click-bait—have slowly intruded into our everyday lives. In response, Dr. Mark and her research groups have placed themselves—carefully and unobtrusively—into the homes, offices, and devices of hundreds of test subjects over the past three decades. Starting in the 1990s by standing all day behind an office worker with a stopwatch and clipboard, and moving progressively to less intrusive and more sophisticated logging techniques, her team (with permission) have documented how our thoughts and workflows are disrupted by interruptions anywhere from dozens to hundreds of times per day, and how productivity and our health and well-being have suffered as a consequence. Some experiments are outlandish (and instructive!), like convincing an office run with military precision to entirely give up email for a week—with surprisingly few negative side-effects and several positive ones.
Dr. Mark exposes with surprising and disturbing detail how the algorithms behind ads can track our behaviour—and even our daily mood—via sophisticated methods and to sometimes disturbing depth. For example, in one experiment she created a new social media account and refused to provide any identifying information, nor access to her contacts… and yet the site presented her with a few dozen “suggested” contacts, about half of whom she already knew. The (tentative) explanation was that they cross-referenced her phone’s internal IMEI number with her other social media accounts… a questionable practice and potential security hole that explicitly circumvents even our best attempts to protect our privacy.
The book is chock full of deep-dives into psychology, technology, workflow, personal downtime, online advertising, social media, even how different video edits affect our perception of the content. After providing this context, the book ends with a top-down discussion of free will and agency, leading to practical advice on self-regulation—including how different personality types may need to regulate themselves differently.
While some other reviews have complained that the book “rambles” and doesn’t get around to practical advice until the last few chapters, I think they’ve missed the point: a list of “tips and tricks” are likely to be forgotten without a good understanding—a mental model—of the surrounding context. In that sense it’s true that this is not simply a self-help book. It is a well-researched treatise intending to provide a deeper understanding of the why, the how—and the mechanisms by which—our attention has been usurped over the past few decades (unintentionally by users of devices, but intentionally by those who make them), written by a world-class expert who’s studied the process under a microscope for the duration. The context is deep and broad, and provides meaning and context to the tips and tricks provided in the last third of the book. I, for one, would find it difficult to remember and apply any such “tips and tricks” without the mental model provided by the background and context.
As Dr. Mark observes, brain-imaging fMRI studies have shown that we become addicted to the reward we feel with new information learned after clicking a link. If the fluorescent yellow cover and bold title of this book are viewed as clickbait, you will not be disappointed with the reward earned by opening it and reading the content within.
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Favorite quote: “fMRI studies show that curiosity triggers an expectation of a reward… So as we traverse the internet, links stimulate our curiosity; we select links, read more content, and are rewarded. Our mind is further aroused, we click on new links… and we easily fall down the rabbit hole. Curiosity is the drug of the internet.”
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A Must-Read Book to Master the Art of Focus in a Distracted World
Dr. Gloria Mark's book, Attention Span, is a treasure trove of knowledge on how to focus and use our attention effectively. Her expertise in the field is evident as she shares valuable insights and highlights the reasons behind our shrinking attention spans. In this digital age, where we constantly juggle our attention between multiple tasks, the adverse effects on our brain and physical health are undeniable.I particularly liked insights about how one develops cognitive fatigue, which leads them to fall into the trap of rewarding themselves with the short-term pleasures of playing Candy Crush or scrolling randomly on social media by cognitive snacking.Her insights about rhythms of attention span are mind-blowing. I can totally resonate with the idea of having peaks and lows of attention spans during certain times of the day. Reclaiming our free will in the era where all of these algorithms are designed to play with our subconscious mind is difficult, but by practicing meta-awareness, we can choose to focus on the things that require our attention in the true sense.The beauty of the book is that it gives us practical tips about overcoming detrimental attention span. Overall, I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to overcome the challenge of staying focused on their tasks.
Top reviews from other countries
An amateur
A solid entry on crowded shelf of literature on attention
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2023
Brian F Donovan
Why distractions don’t serve us and only create more tension
Reviewed in Australia on August 4, 2023
Zoe E. Routh
a long book to tell us what we already know
Reviewed in Australia on May 21, 2023