The Warsaw High School Times

Graphic by Sonia Bajorek

You may have heard that your attention span is only 8 seconds, which supposedly is shorter than a goldfish’s one. But is this really the case? Well, this idea seems to have been almost pulled out of thin air, since there is no evidence to back this statement. Of course, it is not necessarily true that the information overload on the social media did not affect us at all, but we can not really say that it has led us to become less attentive than a goldfish. However, since there is no real research on humans’ and goldfish’s attention spans, why is it still all over the internet?

It all started with a questioning report by Microsoft Canada. After a while, we could read about it all over the internet, including on websites such as the Time Magazine, The New York Times or the BBC. But none of these articles could point out their source of information. Then, when the Microsoft report was investigated further, it was discovered that it was supported by another site called “Statistic Brain”, which has now… deleted the research from their page. Microsoft Canada, as well as the Statistic Brain, do not have any author’s name, year, nor a link to some kind of study. Also, in the Canadian study, the details are scarce, and the metrics are not clear. But, despite these facts, the report found that heavy social media users are the ones to be better in shorter lasting hyper-focus.

Statistics Brain was the one to come up with the idea of directly comparing our attention span to a goldfish’s one. Though there is no scientific evidence to support this, everybody, even the “big fish” of the world’s magazines, believed that a goldfish can be focused on one task for longer than us humans.

When you look at the timeline of the mysterious “goldfish’s attention span” comparison, what you find is even more surprising than you could have ever imagined! It all started in 2000, when The Guardian published an article in which they compared internet users’ attention spans to that of a goldfish, but probably in a figurative sense. Then, an unnamed BBC writer stated that Ted Selker, MIT researcher, claimed that our attention span is as short as a goldfish’s one, but Selker clearly denied having ever said that. And then, in 2012, the famous Statistic Brain “study” was published! Right after this one came the Microsoft Canada report, which caused the entire internet and all magazines to go feral. All of this led various groups and organizations to debunk of these false statements throughout the next few years.

Even though the goldfish theory is not true, there is a strong chance that a wide group of people did not get to the end of this article. Due to the constant notifications, information overload, or the irrelevance of the data presented on the internet, we are in a constant rush and can lose focus while doing some demanding activities. But it is not true that our attention span is only 8 seconds. After all, we are still able to binge a whole Netflix show in one night or read a book in one sit!

So, do not worry about some unsupported by research reports, and remember not to believe in everything you see on the internet! Keep in mind, however, that this does not mean that social media does not have adverse effects on our brains and our attention spans!