I won’t be beaten by a goldfish

I have just read about a Microsoft study claiming that the average person has an attention span of 8 seconds, 1 less than a goldfish. A quick Google search revealed that the study was done in 2015, so it’s hardly breaking news and I don’t know why it’s being reported now. Perhaps our ability to concentrate has dwindled even more since then and now we can’t even manage the focus of a grasshopper. By 2030 we’ll have the attention span of an amoeba and no-one will be able to prepare a meal, drive a car or even dress themselves. Maybe Margaret Atwood could write her next novel about this dystopian future in which people of every gender (72 at the latest count) and skin colour are as inept as each other. True equality at last.

Is this really an accurate reflection of how we live now? I have my doubts. How would doctors ever perform surgery if they could only concentrate for 8 seconds at a time? What about air traffic controllers – what would happen if they felt an irresistible urge to scroll through their Instagram feed instead of guiding an aircraft safely to landing? Even those of us who don’t have such important jobs can surely summon up a few minutes of sustained focus. For example, I have already spent more than 8 seconds concentrating on this blog and I don’t think I’m the only person capable of such an impressive feat.

It does make you wonder, though, if we are really less able to concentrate than we used to be. That smart phone has an irresistible allure. When you think about it, the whole world is available to you in that one little package and there’s surely something more interesting currently happening somewhere in the world than whatever it is you’re doing right now. People have always loved distraction and novelty, but there was a lot less available in the pre-internet age. I’m trying to remember what did distract us. Children shouting, telephones ringing, post arriving, radios playing, car horns beeping, ice cream vans calling to you with tinny versions of Greensleeves  or The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

I have a creeping suspicion that I am less capable of paying attention than I used to be, responding like one of Pavlov’s dogs every time my phone beeps. Something needs to be done. I toyed with the idea of muting all those little pinging noises, but then moved on to something much more ambitious. I decided it was time to read one of those very long classic books written in the 19^th century. As a penance. Charles Dickens’ Bleak House  has been looking at me reproachfully from the bookshelf for some years, so I am taking the plunge. I’ll do my best to get through all 1,000 pages, but whenever his young heroine is being particularly wet and annoying (as they always are), I know I’ll feel the need to get up and make a cup of tea at the very least. But I will not reach for my phone and check my Instagram feed, which is what I suspect a goldfish would do.