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No Stupid Questions

220. Is Your Attention Span Shrinking?

No Stupid Questions

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.63.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I savored it. I absorbed it. I loved it. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Mike Mon. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

0:14.4

Today on the show, are attention spans really shrinking?

0:19.2

Ten minutes sounds so long to me, Mike.

0:40.8

Angela, I have a question for you today. I have a question for you today.

0:47.4

I have been hearing a lot about how the modern attention span is so much shorter than it used to be.

0:53.7

And I know that there are more potential distractions today with phones, the internet, social media, etc.

0:56.0

But is our ability to focus actually diminishing? Or are there just more things battling for our attention than there used to

1:03.1

be? Do we now have the attention span of a gnat or a dog like squirrel? By the way, I have also

1:09.6

asked this question. Are our attention spans shrinking?

1:14.1

It is possible that human beings in 2024

1:17.1

have the same attention spans that we had in 1924

1:21.8

or 1524 or whenever,

1:26.4

but we happen to be in this buffet of amazing things. And so, of course,

1:31.6

we move from one item to the other quickly, but we have the same attention spans. It's not

1:36.3

that we're any different. It's just that our environments are very attention grabbing. But I

1:41.3

think when people ask this question, they are asking whether, because of the

1:46.3

environments we're in, we're different. Right. Can we not even pay attention if we're maximally motivated?

1:52.4

Here's where, like, I will admit, the other week I was with two of my friends at a concert. It's called

1:59.3

Croce by Crocee. So Jim Crocey died in a plane crash.

2:03.7

And his son... Who's Jim Croce? I think I know who that is, but I think I don't know who that is.

2:09.3

He has some iconic songs like Bad, Bad, Leroy, Brown. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. And his son now sings his

2:15.7

music. And the amount of great music Jim Croce was able to put out that's still iconic today in just a short period of time before he died was amazing.

...

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