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Summer picks: Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back? – podcast

The Guardian - Media · Presented by Madeleine Finlay, produced by Joshan Chana, sound design by Tony Onuchukwu, the executive producer was Ellie Bury · last updated

In 2024, the Oxford English Dictionary announced its word of the year was ‘brain rot’. The term relates to the supposedly negative effects of consuming social media content, but it struck a chord more widely with many who feel they don’t have the mental capacity they once had.

Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying our waning attention spans for 20 years. In this episode from January 2025, she tells Madeleine Finlay why she believes our powers of concentration are not beyond rescue, and reveals her top tips for finding focus

Is modern life ruining our powers of concentration?

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