Is your attention span really 47 seconds? What Gloria Mark found

No. The 47-second attention span comes from Gloria Mark's research, and it measures something narrower than attention: the average time office workers at computers stayed on one screen before switching to another, in studies from 2016 to 2020 (Hidden Brain). What it does show is how often we switch, and one of Mark's most surprising findings is who does the switching. About half the time, it's us (All in the Mind).

Mark began measuring in 2003, before smartphones (University of California). Her team shadowed people at work with stopwatches, clicking a start time when someone opened a Word document and a stop time when they turned to their email (Speaking of Psychology). She expected people to stay with one thing for about five minutes, but they averaged about two and a half minutes on any screen (ReThinking with Adam Grant). Once logging software replaced the stopwatches, the average fell to about 75 seconds by 2012 and to 47 seconds from 2016 to 2020 (Hidden Brain).

Mark, now a professor emerita of informatics at UC Irvine (University of California), gathered this work in her 2023 book Attention Span (gloriamark.com). Below are what the 47 seconds measures, why so much of the switching is ours, and the five habits she uses to switch less.

What does the 47-second attention span actually measure?

Mark's measure is the screen in front of you. "Whatever window is in the foreground is what people are paying attention to," she explains, so going from a document to your inbox to a news tab counts as three screens (Hidden Brain). The people she studied were digital information workers at their desks, and screen changes were her "proxy for where people were paying attention" (ReThinking). It measures switching on computers at work, not on phones, and it says nothing about how long anyone can hold a thought.

The 47 seconds is also an average across studies: other teams found 44 and 50 seconds, and together they come to 47 (Hidden Brain). Half of all the measurements were 40 seconds or less, and "sometimes people do spend longer" (Speaking of Psychology). Mark says it has held at "a steady state" for five or six years (Speaking of Psychology).

The 23 minutes isn't refocusing time either

The other popular figure is 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption. In Mark's workplace data, people spent about 10 and a half minutes on a project before moving to something else, and took about 25 and a half minutes, on average, to return to it (Hidden Brain). In between, they worked on other things: "Generally, you're keeping busy," she says (Armchair Expert, 28:16). That's the time until you get back to a project, not the time your mind needs to settle. Her Hidden Brain host admitted he tells himself a quick look takes a second.

"It's never a second." Gloria Mark, Hidden Brain

Why does your attention span feel so short?

Because you switch often, and much of the switching is yours, which Mark calls "one of the most surprising things" in her research (ReThinking). Watching people at work, she'd see someone stop in the middle of a Word document and pick up their phone with nothing outside them to prompt it: "There was something inside themselves" (Hidden Brain). People interrupt themselves "about half the time," she says (All in the Mind), or about 44% in another interview (Armchair Expert, 1:00:38).

The switches that start with you

In her data, when outside interruptions dropped, self-interruptions rose in the next hour (Hidden Brain). "I think a lot of this is conditioning," she says. "We're so habitual" (Armchair Expert, 1:01:41). When she asks people why they switch, habit tops her list, followed by a forgotten task, an urge to look something up, boredom, or wanting a break (ReThinking; Hidden Brain).

Here's what that looks like in practice. Mark was reading an article about AI when she wondered how safe non-organic strawberries are. "And I simply had to look it up," she says (Hidden Brain). Nothing had buzzed. Switches like that are why she doubts alert settings alone will help: "You can turn off notifications and chances are you will still have a short attention span" (All in the Mind). Our guide to turning off notifications covers which alerts to keep.

Does short-form video shorten your attention span?

This worry often goes by the name "brain rot", and the evidence can't settle it yet. A 2025 review pooled 71 studies covering 98,299 people, mostly young adults, with most of the studies from Asia (Nguyen et al., 2025). People who used more short-form video tended to score lower on attention and self-control, a moderate link. But only 14 studies measured thinking skills, most were one-time snapshots, and the authors write that their findings "cannot confirm directionality." Adam Grant, the psychologist, made the same point about the review: people may watch more short videos partly "because they're having trouble with concentration" (LinkedIn). The links were also stronger when studies asked whether people felt unable to stop than when they counted minutes. Our guide to phone addiction explains why that sense of control tells you more than hours do, and doomscrolling covers how to put a stop back.

Studies of media multitasking, using several media at once, point the same way. Across 46 studies, mostly with students and teenagers, heavy multitaskers showed slightly more attention problems, mostly in their own reports, a link "likely to be of minimal practical significance" (Parry & le Roux, 2021).

What constant switching costs

Switching also shows up in stress. In Mark's workplace studies, faster switching went with higher heart-rate readings of stress, though she won't call it a cause: "We can't say that switching our attention causes us to be stressed because we're looking at correlations" (All in the Mind). In a 2008 lab experiment, 48 participants, mostly German university students, answered emails while being interrupted every two minutes (Mark et al., 2008). They finished a little faster but reported more stress, frustration, time pressure and effort. As the authors put it, "interrupted work may be done faster, but at a price."

How to get your attention back: Gloria Mark's five habits

Mark doesn't think the answer is to unplug: a detox, she says, is "like a crash diet" (ReThinking), and our digital detox guide covers the trials. Her habits work on the switch itself; they're her practice, and no trial has tested them.

1. Walk through one day

When Mark interviews people, she asks them to walk her through a day and show where technology fits. They notice things like "the first thing I do in the morning is reach for my phone before I even look out the window," and she asks whether that's working for them, and whether it's stressing them (ReThinking).

Try it on yourself tonight: note where your phone was when you woke, at breakfast and in your first hour of work or school, and circle one moment to change. Our guide to reducing screen time shows how to check those guesses against your phone's own numbers.

2. Catch the urge and ask why

Mark's main skill is what she calls meta-awareness. When she feels the pull, she asks: "Why do I have this urge to go to social media? Why do I have this urge to check my email right now?" Once she has noticed the urge, she can plan: "I'm gonna work 20 more minutes and then I can reward myself with a break" (Hidden Brain).

While writing her book, Mark, who calls herself a news junkie, saw an alert that a famous trial's result was coming. She asked herself whether she needed to look right then, kept working, and read it on her break (Hidden Brain). Reading the news, she asks herself: "have I gotten enough value from reading this article? If not, stop, get back to work" (Armchair Expert, 1:07:57).

3. Picture the end of your day

Mark calls her second tool forethought. When the urge comes, she pictures herself at the end of the workday: "what do I want to do at the end of the day? How do I want to feel?" For her, that's a favorite show or time with family and friends. The more concrete the picture, she says, "the more powerful it is to keep you in check and keep you on task" (Hidden Brain).

4. Take breaks at break points, and give easy breaks an end

Breaks matter to Mark: "It's so important to take breaks and replenish." Her advice is to stop at a break point, such as the end of a section or a paragraph, so there's little to rebuild when you come back (Speaking of Psychology). She's wary of fixed timers that cut into a good stretch (University of California); see our guide to the Pomodoro technique.

Easy, mindless activity can be a good break if it ends. Hers is a word game, and her rule is to keep it short: set a timer, or use what she calls a hook, such as playing five minutes before a meeting, so the meeting pulls you out (Hidden Brain). She has since restated her advice on easy breaks: "really do it in moderation" (ReThinking).

"The problem is when we get trapped." Gloria Mark, University of California

5. Take a real break before you run out

Mark thinks of attention as an "internal tank of mental resources" that hard work and switching drain and sleep refills. In her account, people with more sleep debt have shorter attention spans and turn to "lightweight activities like social media" (Speaking of Psychology); see our guide to sleeping better. As you get more drained, she agrees, you also "lose the ability to guard against distractions," so she checks in before she's empty: "Am I exhausted? If so, take a break." Ideally, "you want to take a walk" (Armchair Expert, 1:10:02 and 1:06:51). She also finds that, on average, focus peaks around 11 a.m. and again around 3 p.m., though early and late types peak at different times (1:03:43 to 1:04:46), so put your hardest work there.

For a practice that helps you stay with one task, see how to focus, which follows the neuroscientist Amishi Jha. For teams, our guide to phones and focus at work covers what employers can change.

Back to the stopwatch

In 2003, Mark's stopwatches clicked every time someone changed screens. They counted switches, and her habits work on the same thing: noticing the switch you're about to make, and deciding whether you want it. As she writes, "Our ability to focus isn't lost, the way we focus is just changing" (gloriamark.com).

Your switch check is the short version. To see what pulls you back to your phone, try the free first chapter of the 1h Protocol to Take Control of Your Phone: a few questions, plus the numbers your phone already keeps, find your pattern and give you one thing to do today. The full program takes about an hour: you set up your phone's settings as you go and leave with a personal protocol built from your answers and your phone's own numbers, with two habits to start with, a lock-screen card and reviews on day 7 and day 14. Four short check-ins follow over 30 days. It's education, with nothing to buy or install. Start free

Frequently asked questions

Is the average attention span really 47 seconds?

No. In Gloria Mark's studies from 2016 to 2020, 47 seconds was the average time office workers at computers stayed on one screen before switching (Hidden Brain). It measures how often people switch at work, not how long anyone can concentrate. Half of the measurements were 40 seconds or less (Speaking of Psychology).

Are attention spans getting shorter?

Time on one screen did shrink in Mark's research, from about two and a half minutes in her first study, published in 2004, to 47 seconds from 2016 to 2020 (Hidden Brain). It has held there for five or six years (Speaking of Psychology). That describes switching at work, not anyone's capacity to pay attention.

Why is my attention span so short?

Often because switching has become a habit. In Mark's workplace studies, about half of all switches started with the person, prompted by habit, an urge to look something up or the pressure to answer messages (All in the Mind). Tiredness adds to it: she says people with more sleep debt have shorter attention spans (Speaking of Psychology). If your focus still feels out of your control after a couple of weeks of changes like these, talk to someone you trust.

Does short-form video shorten your attention span?

Nobody knows yet. A 2025 review of 71 studies found that people who used more short-form video tended to score lower on attention and self-control, but most of the studies were snapshots, so the link could run either way (Nguyen et al., 2025). It may be that people who struggle to concentrate watch more short videos.

Can you improve your attention span?

Mark thinks so. She calls herself an optimist and believes "attention spans can lengthen" (University of California). No trial has tested her habits, but they all work on the switch: notice the urge and ask whether you need it now.

Sources

This article draws on Gloria Mark's interviews on Hidden Brain, Speaking of Psychology, ReThinking with Adam Grant, Armchair Expert and All in the Mind, her University of California interview and book page, and the studies listed below.

• Hidden Brain: Finding focus, with Gloria Mark (podcast episode, 2024)
• Speaking of Psychology, episode 225: Why our attention spans are shrinking, with Gloria Mark (podcast episode, American Psychological Association, 2023)
• ReThinking with Adam Grant: Why a digital detox won't reset your attention span, with Gloria Mark (podcast episode, TED Audio Collective, 2026)
• Armchair Expert: Gloria Mark, on attention spans (podcast episode, 2022)
• All in the Mind: Fighting for focus in the age of distraction (podcast episode, ABC Radio National, 2025)
• University of California, How to sharpen your attention and meet your goals in 2024 (university interview with Gloria Mark, 2024)
• Gloria Mark, Attention Span (book, author's page and publisher description, 2023)
• Mark, Gudith & Klocke, The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress (lab experiment with 48 participants, CHI conference paper, 2008)
• Nguyen et al, Feeds, feelings, and focus: a systematic review and meta-analysis examining the cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use (systematic review of 71 studies with a meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin, 2025)
• Adam Grant, post and comment on short-form video and concentration (social post, 2025)
• Parry & le Roux, "Cognitive control in media multitaskers" ten years on: a meta-analysis (meta-analysis of 46 studies, Cyberpsychology, 2021)