Is technology shortening your attention span? TL;DR yes

According to a recent study published by Microsoft, the abundance of technology in modern society has caused the average attention span to fall dramatically since the start of the century. 

While people could focus on a task for about 12 seconds back in 2000, that figure has dropped to just 8 seconds in 2013. A lot of that reduction apparently stems from a combination of smartphones and an abundance of content. Many younger people find themselves compulsively checking their phones, and the excess of things to do on the Internet (the worst offender being social networking) makes it all too easy to find diversions.

Thankfully, it's not all bad. While tech seems to be hurting attention spans overall, it also appears to improve your ability to both multitask and concentrate in short bursts. You not only get a better sense of what deserves your attention, but do a better job of committing useful things to memory.

It's worth noting that there seem to be limits to these improvements (and heavy social network usage tends to make things worse as a whole), but you can take comfort in knowing that there's an upside to your gadget addictions.

Source: Microsoft

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