What's That Rash? - Are our attention spans getting shorter?

0:00ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Before Knives Out, before True Crime Podcasts, there was Agatha Christie. Clarenicles here, and I'd love you to join me on the book show as we investigate the life and books of Dame Agatha Christie, the so-called Queen of Crime. She was definitely my gateway drug, if you like. Yeah, I wish I had my little Miss Marple mug that I could show you right now.

0:29Search for the Agatha Christie Murder Club on ABC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Norman, I don't think... Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I don't know if you would characterise yourself as a digital native. Would that be a fair statement to make? No, I would say that I'm not a digital native. And yet, you had an experience recently where you really found that you were...

0:54literally lost without your phone. Oh, that's right. Yeah. It was last week and I jumped out of the car, been dropped off at the station and saw the car going off into the distance with my phone in it. And then what? And then what happened? No cash, no credit cards, nothing, and an appointment in the city. I walked into the city. I suppose it wasn't that bad for me. Luckily, I remembered the address.

1:18Is it right? Like you sort of outsource your entire brain to your phone these days. Like, I know my husband's phone number off by heart because he's had it since we were 17. But like most people don't even know phone numbers off by heart anymore. Yeah, I'm actually quite good at numbers. Maybe that's because I'm pre-digital. I can still remember my home phone number of the house I grew up in. Oh, yes. 638506 if anybody's interested. But I do know my wife's...

1:43mobile phone number thankfully but I had no mobile phone and I just thought this guy coming up to some random person in the street saying do you mind if I use your phone would not be well received so I thought I'll just walk. They would have gone oh my gosh it's Dr Norman Swan here have all my money. I doubt it. Well this idea of what technology is doing to our brains is kind of what we're talking about today here on What's That Rash? The show that answers the health questions that everyone's asking.

2:12So today's question comes from Poppy. Poppy describes herself as a 20 year old habitual doom scroller. Really Norman, what I can't get over is, I'm just so excited that a 20 year old is listening to our... Lots of 20 year olds are listening to us. They want a wisdom. Anyway, Poppy says, as a 20 year old habitual doom scroller, I've come to notice that my attention span is quite minimal. My question for you is, do younger people have shorter attention spans than slightly older humans?

2:42If so, is there a scientifically proven correlation with doom-scrolling and social media? What was the Poppy said again? So it's obviously not just a young person thing then. I'm kidding Poppy. I'm kidding Poppy. I drank in every word that you wrote. Raptly paying attention to your question. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, great question. I love this. I think this is a sort of thing that a lot of people are wondering about, whether the fact that we feel distracted a lot of the time by our phones, whether it's doing us.

3:11permanent damage, and especially whether it's doing young people permanent damage. Yeah, and it's been said often enough that we live in an attention economy where we have commercial entities striving for our attention. It's never been thus. You watch commercial television, there are ads, and ads are decided to grab us in, but now it's ubiquitous in social media as well. So it's not new that people vie for our attention, but now it's worth serious money. It's worth serious money and there's ever more things competing for it. I think a good place for us to start is to kind of give ourselves a bit of a definition about what attention is because it's not cut and dried, despite the fact that one commentator, William James, back in the day said, everyone knows what attention is. Other psychologists since that time have said, no, no, no. No one knows. No one knows or can ever know what attention is that comes from Bernard Hommel. Surely the truth lies somewhere in the middle norm. Well, it's been like the consciousness debate. I noticed that Michael, the week that we're speaking, Michael Pollins in town,

4:17talking about his book on consciousness and the same sort of theme is that everybody knows what consciousness is until you actually look at it and it kind of disappears. But I don't want to take away from his excellent book on the topic. But there is an overlap between consciousness and attention. But essentially it's the process of focusing on something specific and being able to separate out that from others and long enough to solve problems and making sure that what you're focusing on is relevant and it's an editing process as much as anything. Also to pay attention to something you're kind of tuning out other things as well. Yes and are you paying attention to it long enough to be able to deal with whatever it is you're looking at or take it in. And you know the way researchers love to do it they researchers slice and dice so they reckon that there are various

5:07parts of attention which is, you know, our state of arousal, our ability to switch the selective attention, which is really what we were just talking about a moment ago, and sustained attention. So there are various aspects to attention which researchers look at. But what people are talking about in common parlance is really attention span. How long we can stay on one task? Can we sustain concentration? How easily we're distracted? And I think that's what Poppy's question is addressing. Yeah, this idea of staying on task, and I think anyone who's been frustrated with themselves for procrastinating knows that it can be a hard thing to wrangle sometimes your own attention and it can be easy to slide away. I guess what I'd like to do is maybe some benchmarking on what an attention span

5:54is in kind of lab settings because there are ways of measuring this in very controlled environments. Well, there are lots of tests for it. So for something that's not understood very well, there are plenty of tests to look at it. This is a stroke color and word test. The Wisconsin cards are the test. The word, the color word test is like the color. It's like a word that spells out a color, but it's written in a different color. And you've got to say the name of the color and not.

6:20the word as it's written. Yeah, that's the selectivity. Then there's sorting cards. There's a clock test trying to identify unusual jumps. So it's basically tests that try and capture our attention and then solve problems or answer questions along the way. I will say with the clock test, you and I as broadcasters normally spend a lot of time looking at clocks very attentively. And in one of the studios where I record, the clock does this thing where it's like a normal analog clock.

6:45second hand's ticking around, but every now and again, it will swoop back. Oh no. It'll swoop back and it'll swoop forward and it's the most stressful thing to look at when you're like, I need to time that to the exact second. Exactly. Anyway, so they've done these tasks, they've asked people to pay attention, you're in a lab, you're looking very hard and the thing that actually has blown my mind about these tests and all of it is just how short our attention spans are.

7:13in perfect conditions, like the results are in the seconds. No, we're not talking minutes or hours here. We're not. We're talking about a few seconds. And the interesting, well, I suppose it's unsurprising, is the younger you are into childhood, the fewer seconds you can pay attention, but we know that already. And then when you get into adulthood, that attention span really does go up, but it goes up to like 65 seconds. It doesn't go up to three hours.

7:41But even then, it's younger adults having longer attention spans than older adults, which kind of, at face value at least, contradicts Poppy's hypothesis that maybe younger people have shorter attention spans than older people. That's right. And, you know, the older thing I put down to boredom, you know, I've seen all of this before. I've seen this clock before. Yeah, let's get on with it. And impatience and so on. But that's an evidence-free gratuitous comment that I've just made.

8:07I think what's interesting here is if we're talking about attention spans in seconds of something that's highly something that you need to spend a lot of brain energy attending to like watching a clock for faults or reading out you know words you're really paying a lot of attention there and then I think about the sorts of environments where we think about the importance of paying attention like say driving a car or studying or writing a document or sort of doing a work-based task Those are activities that take a lot longer than a few seconds. I'm just kind of wondering how useful this sort of research is to tell us about attention span when that's not really how productivity works in the real world. No, and that's a key here. And we all refer listeners to our sister podcast, Science Friction, in which Angela Lafouappière looked at just this issue in quite some detail. And we'll have that link in our show notes. Yeah, it's a brain rot series from a year or two ago now.

9:04What we're talking about here and where it gets confused with attention span is cognitive switching, distractions. So how often we get distracted by something? So in other words, is our attention span going down or is our distraction level going up? Ah, yes. Blame external factors. I'm not the problem. Correct. So if you are, let's say you're not even on social media, but you've got several apps on your phone, And you've allowed notifications on those apps. And you've got notifications on your email. You literally can be interrupted in your tasks several hundred times an hour. The number is extraordinary. And what they've showed in research, say, in a medical environment and other environments is you've got a task in hand, but you're distracted constantly. And that distraction

9:58Even if it's for a few seconds, switches you to another task, then you get switched to another task and you have to come back to the original task. Stress levels go up and task performance can actually go down. So what's not actually changing is a tension span. What's changing is attention distraction. That makes total sense to me. And I find it really frustrating because it is so hard to opt out of those distractions. Like I can have my email.

10:26program closed on my computer and it will still give me pop-up notifications. Yes, by all means, email me, tell me how to fix that thing. I know that there's a fix for it. It's also the reason why I stopped wearing a smartwatch, Norman. I didn't like my wrist. Someone's like, it's like a kid coming up and tapping you on the wrist every minute or two being all like, and it's always something awful. It's like a news notification saying 300 people have died in the landslide. And you're like, I didn't need to, like that's horrible, but I didn't need to know that at this moment. It pulls you out.

10:55Mind you, the other day when I didn't have my phone, I thought, oh, my smartphone would be quite handy here. I could jump on the train. But there's a price to be paid. So people have actually tried to study whether or not attention span is in fact declining. And there's empirical evidence suggests that maybe it's a worry. If you talk to people who are content creators in the social media environment, they say the first three seconds is critical. If you don't grab people on your content in the first three seconds, you're stuffed. In fact, I was talking to one of these content creators just the other day, and I was saying, well, what's the duration of your content these days? Oh, it's come down a bit. You know, it's less than 30 seconds now. And when you and I do videos online... The OEC Health Instagram and stuff, yeah. They're 90 seconds.

11:43because we respect our audience. We know that you've got a long attention span. Long attention span. Anyway, there's something we should just explain here in relation to attention span, which was originally designed for intelligence. And it's called the Flynn effect. So this is the thing where IQs in general seemed to be going up generation to generation. Yeah. And it's named after an American researcher who spent most of his career in New Zealand. And based on international data, there was a bit of a panic about the Flynn effect a few years ago saying, well, maybe the Flynn effect is reversing, which is a little bit part of this story about devices and attention and all that sort of thing. But in fact, the data on which that reversal were based were not reliable. And it looks as though the Flynn effect is actually continuing, increasing intelligence generation by generation. But what's the, is there a Flynn effect for attention span?

12:37And that was the focus of a particular study looking at test performance between 1990 and 2021. So 30 years of data, and there is in fact a thin effect. So contrary to what Poppy thinks and feels, attention span has been increasing generation by generation. It does feel very counterintuitive. But I think it is worth calling out that, like we said before, these aren't.

13:03These are tests in controlled environments. Yes, exactly. So it's really hard to extrapolate from that to what that looks like in the real world for people. Yes, and it doesn't account in the real world for this cognitive switching that our lives demand from us, which makes us feel that we don't complete tasks. We can't pay attention. I did it for corners on this in late April, where you're trying to explain some of the high diagnostic rates of attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, where people are saying they can't pay attention, they want to be able to pay attention, but it's in this environment where we're not allowed to pay attention to anything for very long and we're switching tasks and it's very hard to complete tasks when you've got your phone on. Are you saying that the high rates of ADHD diagnosis might be a function of that and not

13:57true disorders in some people? In some people is the important qualifier. ADHD has been underdiagnosed in women, but not to the extent that it's diagnosed, where we showed in the four corners that in some suburbs in our major cities, women under 40 have a 6% prevalence of ADHD prescription of medications, when the real figure is around about 2%. So some things explaining there. So maybe the 2% is underestimated, but not by that much. So what we were suggesting is there's a rate of over diagnosis, which is not to say that these people feel there is a problem with their attention and being able to focus. But lifestyle and the bombardment by our media technologies makes it really tough. That is really interesting, this idea that our environment

14:46is having that big of an effect on us and it does feel very difficult to opt out. I do want to come later to some of the techniques that we can use at an individual level to sort of help claw some of that back. I did want to ask though about what you were saying about code switching and we spoke recently about cognitive preserving like basically things that are good for your brain and it sounded like challenging your brain was generally pretty good for your cognitive long-term health. Norman, if I've understood you correctly, is multitasking across multiple media inputs like double screening, I'm sitting on my couch, I'm watching a movie but I'm also still scrolling on my phone. Is that maybe helping my cognitive reserve because I'm making my brain work so hard? We'll only know that in the years to come.

15:29And it's going to be a very complicated story because if kids are doom-scrolling and using AI when they should be on normal developmental tasks, they might actually enter adulthood with lower cognitive function and therefore reach a disabling level of cognitive decline earlier than other people. So we don't know the answers to that question. In theory, it is quite demanding on the brain. And in theory, it could be quite good. But in terms of practical day-to-day effects, People feel stressed by it and stress until your response to stress feeling out of control because the technology is controlling you That has been shown to be bad for your brain. So it's your response to that. So some people can flick through it and feel quite happy But some people feel I'm not getting stuff done. I'm stressed. I'm late with my deadlines that feeling is not good for your brain

16:18fair. So maybe not completely ruining ourselves forever, but it's still a very dissatisfying place to be. So let's talk about what to do about it. I want to get to the research normally, but first I want the me search. What have you found works for you personally? Not walking around with my phone all day, being very selective. Leaving it in the car. That's right. That was fantastic. It felt so good walking and being late for my poem, but being very careful about notifications. So not being sort of really limiting that. But even limiting that means you still get lots. So I've got two email addresses. So I get notifications from the ABC and notifications from my own one, very hard to silence those because I kind of need to know what's going on. But apps, I'm started to delete quite a few apps from my phone. And sometimes I just leave the phone behind. Controversial and honestly, revolutionary. I'm the same. I uninstalled social media apps from my phone earlier this year. And I have not read as many books.

17:14In this span of time, since I was about 11 years old, I am loving it. I don't miss it in the slightest. And I turn my phone on Do Not Disturb all the time. Like, sorry if you're ever trying to get onto me. My phone is probably on Do Not Disturb. I just don't want to be bothered all the time. But you've got me on special speed dial, haven't you? Oh, you break through every...

17:35barrier that I put up. What about what the evidence says? What do we know about what we can do to help claw some of this? Maybe if it's not clawing our attention span back, tuning out a bit more of the distractions in our world. So one of the things, there are various apps that are being offered on there, and there's not very much evidence around them, but one app where there is a family of apps that do seem to work are where they warn you that they're about to block access.

18:01But the effect seems to wear off after a while. It may well be that you've got to do a digital detox. And if you've got Instagram on your phone, it's very captivating. And half an hour goes by. Especially if one of our videos comes up, Norman. Exactly. So just tune in. The only notification you get is when Watch That Rash video comes on. Exactly.

18:24I will say on the digital detox thing, there is a pretty big industry around this as well. So the tech industry has managed to sell us the products. And now there's the fresh new industry, or sometimes the tech industry as well, selling us the solutions. It's like the pharmaceutical industry. We'll send you donors and they will sell you upwards. And now it's just the same as there is that sort of addictive element to it as well.

18:46And there's very dubious evidence behind these apps as to whether or not they have the desired effect. Because in fact, the desired effect from the industry is that you stay on your phone and you have as many apps as possible on your phone to capture your attention. So one of the questions that Poppy asked specifically was, is there a scientifically proven correlation between shortened attention and doom scrolling? What I'm hearing here is no, but kind of yes. Well, No, there's very little evidence that attention span has gone down. What there's lots of evidence about is that our ability to pay attention to a single task has gone down because of distractions. So distractions are what makes you feel that your attention span has gone down. I mean, it's really cruel because who's got an alarm clock these days? It's your phone that's your alarm clock. So your phone's by your bed and then it's just going zz, zz, zz.

19:40as everybody knows, and you wake up and hear what the hell's going on here. And then you make the mistake of lifting it. No. Keep the phone in the bathroom. That's my other hot tip. So your sleep's going down as well. Can you hear the alarm in from the bathroom? The one time I wear my smartwatch is to bed at night because it wakes me up without waking my husband up, and my phone is in another room. And that's where I've managed to land at this stage. And the other answer to Poppy's question is that we've only got so much brain to hold stuff.

20:10your cognitive capacity, if you like. And we're overloading it. So you've got to, you know, unloading is what you've got to do. So there's no, there is no evidence as far as I can see that we are shrinking our cognitive capacity with the electronic world that we live in. But there's plenty evidence that the distractions fill our cognitive capacity. So we haven't got room for other stuff. You know what, even though that's kind of a bit scary to think about, it's, it's a less demoralizing answer than we've actually broken our brains irreparably. Correct. It means that you hold the power to change in your own hands.

20:45Literally in your own hands. Literally in your hands and in the world around you. Well Poppy, thank you so much for the question. I hope that it's been useful. Your brain's not broken, your attention span's probably better than Norman's and mine. Use it for good and not for evil. And please, everyone, write in with your solutions to this 21st century problem. And your questions. They can all come to the same place, thatrashatabc.net.au. And I do need to mention one point of business right now, Norman. Norman, you are having a couple of weeks off for a little... I don't want to say the word break.

21:15Actually, I'm going to say it. You having a break? Well, it depends on the obviously pretty surgeon whether there's a break or not. But yeah, I'm having a break. Do you want to talk about it? Sure. Well, we've talked about my knee often enough. And after six years, I'm relenting. I'm having a knee replacement.

21:30I am wishing you all the best medical vibes and juju your way as you have that. And of course, we're giving Norman a week or two off to recover from his knee replacement. Don't worry. I'll be drilling him. Nope. Don't worry. I'll be asking him all of the most invasive questions I can think of when he's back on deck. Brace yourself for the answers. So if you would like to send Norman a love note ahead of his surgery, that rash at avc.net.au. Amen.

21:56But we do actually have a couple of things in the mailbag this week as well, Norman. One from Gillian, talking about old person smell. So Gillian says, your story of old person smell reminded me of the sting of a decades old taboo game loss. Are you familiar with the board game Taboo, Norman? I'm not.

22:16It's one of those word games where there's a word on the card that you're trying to get your teammates to say, but there's also a list of words that you are not allowed to say that relate to that. It's sort of like a more complicated version of the game articulate, which I'm also a massive fan of. Anyway, Jillian says, She was going for lavender, but I shouted out tiger balm and never guessed lavender at all. My maternal grandparents, Jillian says, were Hong Kong Chinese and avid users of tiger balm. My Hungarian grandmother always smelled of tweed perfume, both scents instantly bring me memories of them.

22:55Yay, old person smells. Great story, Julian. And Jen says, hello, rashes. The recent prompts you received about aged body smell and the use of persimmon soap demonstrates the literary currency of your listeners. Switzy by Emma Klein is on the book along list as the central character slides into dementia. His anxiety about his body's smell continues. One thing he can work on while his mind becomes less reliable. He uses that special, expensive Japanese persimmon.

23:24soap. We are in the zeitgeist. What's that rash? It's right in the zeitgeist. In the center of it. Well, thank you for your emails. Again, if you want to send Norman's knee an email, if you want to ask us a question, if you want to share something, if you want to tell us how you've been managed to digitally detox, it's all the same email address. That rash at abc.net.au. See you next week. Oh no, we'll see you next week. I'll see you next week.