Toronto, Canada: The smartphones are doing a lot of harm to our brain functionalities than we can ever imagine. As per the scientists, the smartphones have cut the human attention span up to an extent that it is less than that of a goldfish.
Researchers surveyed 2,000 participants in Canada and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms. The results showed the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000, to eight seconds, mentions The Telegraph.
Goldfish are believed to have an attention span of nine seconds. Meanwhile, it is found out that that the ability of humans to multitask has improved.
The study reads “Canadians [who were tested] with more digital lifestyles (those who consume more media, are multi-screeners, social media enthusiasts, or earlier adopters of technology) struggle to focus in environments where prolonged attention is needed.”
The study further suggests that while digital lifestyles decrease sustained attention overall, it’s only true in the long-term. Early adopters and heavy social media users front load their attention and have more intermittent bursts of high attention. They’re better at identifying what they want/don’t want to engage with and needless to process and commit things to memory.
A study by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Medicine in the US reveals that 79 percent of respondents are exposed to dual screens by using mobile devices while watching TV.
Bruce Morton, a researcher at the University of Western Ontario’s Brain and Mind Institute, suggested it is the result of humans curious over information.
He explains giving an example that, when we first invented the car, it was so novel, the thought of having an entertainment device in the car was ridiculous because the car itself was the entertainment.
“After a while, travelling for eight hours at a time, you’d had enough of it. The brain is bored. You put radios in the car and video displays,” he adds.
“Just because we may be allocating our attention differently as a function of the technologies we may be using, it doesn’t mean that the way our attention actually can function has changed,” he says.