Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life by Gloria Mark is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we’re interrupted by others.

Attention Span reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find creativity, joy and wellness in our everyday lives.

Psychologist Gloria Mark began researching how technology affects human attention when offices were first getting computers. Over the last 30 years, she has tracked changes in our attention spans and stress levels, and in the fundamental way our brains process information.

Now in Attention Span, Dr Mark shows how much of what we think we know about attention is wrong. She explores the current crisis of focus and productivity that is so deeply entwined with rising rates of anxiety and depression, and investigates what we might be able to do about it.

Delving into the newly celebrated concept of ‘kinetic attention’, she introduces a more balanced understanding of the rhythm between deep focus and less focused states, which may actually serve to make us happier and more productive in the long term.

About the author

Dr Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and a leader in the fields of attention, multitasking and human-computer interactions. She is a two-time recipient of the Google Research Award and has conducted some of the world’s most detailed on-site research in the workplace, using a range of sensors, biosensors and other measures to track employee behaviour to measure focus, stress, and computer activity. Her primary research interest is in understanding the impact of digital media on people’s lives and she is best known for her work in studying people’s multitasking, mood and behaviour while using digital media in real world environments.

Categories International Non-fiction

Tags Attention Span Gloria Mark Jonathan Ball Publishers New books New releases