Eight Seconds And Dropping? Why Short Attention Spans May Be More About Motivation

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We are regularly bombed with information on a steep drop in the duration of attention. Based on its own data in 2015, Microsoft reported that the average attention time had gone from around 12 seconds during the eight -second millennials for Gen Z.

And while the new Premier League season at the start, UEFA presented a new “eight -second rule” declaring that a goalkeeper cannot hold the ball for more than eight seconds or that the opposing team wins a corner kick. Coincidence? The rule was introduced to avoid wasting time. The average attention length may be necessary to launch the balloon, on average, eight seconds. And it may also be how long viewers can be careful when nothing happens.

But how does the attention really work? How can we improve it?

The attention is crucial. Who did not experience distraction in the middle of a conversation and suddenly forgot what they said. However, what is sometimes missed is that there are many forms of attention, and all do not necessarily decrease.

The football rule is more closely linked to a type of attention called visual scan. For a goalkeeper, it can be scanned the ground to determine who to pass the ball. There are many studies on visual digitization in football, but not so much on goalkeepers.

A newspaper has studied digitization and performances among the English football players at the Premier League. They found that using a ten -second scanning time gave players a small but positive performance advantage. Other studies have shown that, in elite football players, the best players spend more time scanner than others, unless there is an opposing player nearby.

Digitization is a form of attention which allows the footballer to take advantage of a limited opportunity in time, where the decisions of who to pass or where to run on the field must be taken very quickly.

This is a type of “hot cognition” – a way of social and emotional thinking, a bit like an intestinal instinct. It is very different from the “cold” or “rational” cognition involved in the decision -making that footballers make with their managers and coaches out of the field, where videos of parts are analyzed.

In such situations, we are more likely to use “sustained attention”, which pays attention to something for a sustained period. It ultimately requires mental concentration.

Likewise, there are other forms of attention, for example, “divided attention” or “alternating attention”, which involve moving attention between different things over a sustained period. These are generally also used for colder decisions.

Different parts of the brain are at work when we use different types of attention. Hot decisions involve a cerebral network which includes the prefrontal orbitofrontal ventromedial cortex, which supports emotional regulation and decision -making. Cold decisions, on the other hand, involve a different neural network which includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, supporting executive functions such as control or inhibitions or short -term memory.

Another time, we make hot and fast decisions concerns first impressions. Again, the attention used is an immediate type of instinct. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is an important brain region associated with the first impressions.

When we see or meet someone for the first time, we implicitly form an impression of their attractiveness and possibly other features. We can adjust this immediate initial impression later, using more supported or divided types of attention, because we learn more about the person.

An excellent example of this is given by Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen Pride and prejudicesWhere the first negative impressions are immediately formed. It is only later that they are corrected for positive impressions because more knowledge is acquired on the two protagonists.

First positive impressions tend to stay with people. In addition, if the very positive first impressions are correct, they have been demonstrated to direct long -term relationships, which, in some cases, can be the “love at first glance” effect.

Motivation improves attention

All this means that there is not a single brain region involved in “attention” in general. It is possible to improve a form of attention and worse to another.

For example, generation Z has the highest daily screen time with many 2.5 hours per day expenses on social networks – which requires a certain sustained attention. The eight seconds are therefore more likely to be a visual sweep or a surf for something interesting. Young people also spend long periods of listening podcasts and consume more and more audio books, which suggests that they can concentrate for long periods of time, but may prefer points of sale that allow them several tasks. So, if the content is interesting, motivation can improve sustained attention.

Mothers of children and adolescents told me several times by children of children and adolescents with a hyperactivity disorder with attention deficit (ADHD) that they do not understand why their children cannot focus on their school work when they can spend hours playing computer games. The answer is motivation. When you have fun, time passes quickly and it is easy to keep your attention over a long time.

This also suggests a solution to improve the duration of attention. We have to make tasks that require more motivating or fun attention.

Attention supported

That said, it’s not just about scanning the attention that seems to reduce. There have been a number of studies on the decrease in sustained attention. Some psychologists therefore argue that students should be shorter.

However, a study by medical students revealed that the information presented between 15 and 30 minutes was recalled, while the equipment presented in the first 15 minutes had the worst retention. So, is it possible to hack people’s attention and conferences in a way that makes them better remember the content?

Interestingly, where the student sat in the conference room also had an impact on retention. Tests were given immediately after the conference for students seated in front, in the middle and back of the conference room. They remembered 80%, 71.6%and 68.1%, respectively. However, where you have chosen to sit down could also reflect your natural motivation for the conference subject.

The biophysical researcher, Neil Bradbury, shows a convincing case that the motivation of the students and the enthusiasm and the passion of teachers, combined with good quality content and illustrations, are key factors to determine the duration of a speaker able to hold public attention. Perhaps students to move attention between listening, visualization and writing could also be useful.

Content selection should not be all about cold decision -making; You must also consider hot cognition to put yourself in the mind of the public and consider what could interest them the most.

Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Cambridge. She receives funding from the wellcomome Trust. His research work is carried out in the themes of mental health and neurodegeneration of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Center (BRC).

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