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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Helen Coffey

Our attention spans really are getting shorter – here’s how you can fix yours

Attention span of a goldfish? Concentration has been eroded in the past 20 years - (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Ten years ago, a shocking headline captured the world’s attention: “Human beings now have an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish!”

This claim, though horrifying, was totally bogus. The stat in question – that our attention spans had shrunk to a meagre eight seconds – was founded on two spurious and unverified sources and widely spread by a Microsoft Ads “study” published in 2015.

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