Rested and won’t be tired during the school day. Exercise can also improve a student’s attention by getting them up and moving earlier in the day. Teachers implementing breaks during class always helps me relax and take a break from learning to talk to my friends and maybe get a drink of water. This helps prepare me for the next part of class.
If we keep up with this our attention span will become so bad that we can’t watch anything without getting bored. Even with myself, I have felt that my attention span gets smaller and I can’t even watch a sports game or movie without having to turn on my phone and open up Instagram or TikTok because the game just seems so boring to me at that moment. With the new school year upon us, students and teachers return to school and new rules and problems are revealed during the first days. Nowadays, phones are being brought everywhere, which is a big problem for our youth. Students are on their phones now more than ever, which has contributed to their inability to pay attention for long periods and weakened their attention spans. This is very bad for schools because students will miss information if they can only pay attention for 15 minutes.
Being able to pay attention to something even when it becomes boring is a very important and key skill to becoming a better student and more intelligent. According to a study conducted by Microsoft, from the year 2000 to 2020, the average teenager’s attention span has declined by about eight seconds, which is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish. For the school side, this is a very bad thing and can lead students to miss information when instructions are being given.
One key factor that is affecting teenagers’ attention spans is the way social media, videos, and photos are fed to them. On apps such as Instagram and TikTok, around half of the videos the user sees are videos/clips that are less than 10 seconds long. I have even caught myself being caught in this kind of attention trap and will mindlessly scroll through my phone. When a longer, minute-long video pops up I tend to skip in and go to the next video because I get bored while watching that long of a video. I think if this keeps up we will eventually get to a point where if a video isn’t full of action in the first few seconds nobody will notice it and just keep swiping their boredom away.
According to the CNLD article titled Average attention span by age group, teenagers can maintain their attention for about 20 to 40 minutes. However, Leora Behavioral suggests that the attention span of a teenager ranges from 10 to 20 minutes now in modern-day time. While that may seem like a long time, here at Millard West we have block scheduling (1.5 hour classes) and if you lose a student 10 minutes in the lesson they will miss out on lots of information.
The way students can best combat this is by getting at least eight hours of sleep so they can help ourselves with our attention spans is to go on walks, sit outside to help us get some fresh air, and do something that is not moving at a million miles per second.
Paying attention in class and having a good attention span can be the difference between a high and low grade. When you pay attention in class, you gain more knowledge, become better at studying, and become more comfortable with the content and subject of the class. Coming to class ready to learn and ensuring you are awake is a great way to help you pay attention and improve your attention span.
Overall, our attention spans are shrinking at an alarming rate and kids are having a harder time paying attention and focusing in class because of it. The best ways we can combat this is by getting eight hours of sleep, eating enough food, getting daily exercise, and taking breaks during class and study times.
