Most Americans consume about seven hours of screen time per day, meaning that people are spending seven out of twenty four hours each day on their screens, and, assuming they sleep for around eight hours, they are left with nine hours that do not involve screens. The impact of excessive screen time is crumbling attention spans away into a fragment of what they used to be.
Many teachers have shared posts online about their students hardly tuning in long enough to teach a lesson. Those teachers have decided that the lack of attention and interest is an effect of screen time, and, more importantly, social media. Tessa Nussenbaum, a reporter for The Standard, claims that “I am sitting at my desk, trying to finish an assignment due tomorrow. When my phone buzzes, I force myself to look away, fighting the urge to pick it up. It always fails.” She states, because social media offers us the chance to scroll when we become bored, we begin to carry that mood into reality, and become disengaged and bored when we cannot scroll our devices through math class or a job.
Kim Mills and Dr. Gloria Mark from the APA hint that people spend such a majority of their time on screens, so much so that stepping away can feel like jumping into a cold body of water. Distracted by the lack of technology, we disassociate or become bored.
“For teens, the ever-changing nature of scrolling and skimming can keep them hooked for hours, which scientists say decreases attention spans,” The Berkeley High Jacket writes. They reaffirm the fact that social media causes us to disengage with our other tasks. The Berkeley High Jacket also declares that social media is so accessible and addictive that it leads teens to over consume media and remain with a gnawing hunger for more.
TikTok is an especially time-consuming app to factor into the issue of declining attention spans, as the app features never-ending feeds of short videos that keep people focused on everything but their actual tasks. On TikTok, viewers will often come across one video on one half of the screen, while a second video plays on the other half. The creators of these TikTok’s purposely make videos like this to keep people interested and watching. When the viewer gets bored with the video on the right, they can view the video on the left and consume double the amount of videos at once. It is apparent that social media is detrimental to attention spans, as videos with the longest watching spans are doubling up on content to stray people from scrolling.
Social media does not only impact attention but in many cases health. The Center of Humane Technology states that, depending on the content you consume and the amount of which is being consumed, users have been diagnosed with increased anxiety, higher rates of depression, loneliness, a lower quality of sleep, lower self-esteem, and finally, shorter attention spans.
Attention spans are decreasing, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to social media being unfavorable. Regardless, social media is still an amazing opportunity for teens to connect with each other like never before. Although social media provides opportunities and experiences, it is best in moderation. If you notice your screen time climbing higher, take a step back and indulge in a hobby or sport in order to increase your attention and productivity, both within and out of the classroom or workplace.
