220. Is Your Attention Span Shrinking?

No Stupid Questions

Does a surplus of information create a shortage of attention? Are today’s young people really unable to focus? And do goldfish need better PR?

• SOURCES:
  • Neil Bradbury, professor of physiology at Rosalind Franklin University.
  • Nicholas Carr, writer and journalist.
  • Johann Hari, writer and journalist.
  • Charles Howard, University Chaplain and Vice President for Social Equity & Community at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Felicity Huntingford, emeritus professor of functional ecology at the university of Glasgow.
  • Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine.
  • Rick Rubin, music producer and record executive.
  • Herbert Simon, professor of computer science and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.

• RESOURCES:
  • Uncovering Your Path: Spiritual Reflections for Finding Your Purpose, by Charles Lattimore Howard (forthcoming 2025).
  • Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, by Gloria Mark (2023).
  • The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin (2023).
  • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari (2022).
  • "Quibi’s Founder and CEO Explain What Went Wrong," by Jessica Bursztynsky (CNBC, 2020).
  • "Digital Democracy Survey, Eleventh Edition," by Deloitte (2017).
  • "Busting the Attention Span Myth," by Simon Maybin (BBC News, 2017).
  • "Attention Span During Lectures: 8 Seconds, 10 Minutes, or More?" by Neil Bradbury (Advances in Physiology Education, 2016).
  • "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic, 2008).
  • "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World," by Herbert Simon (Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest, 1971).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Multitasking Doesn’t Work. So Why Do We Keep Trying?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • "Rick Rubin on How to Make Something Great," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).