I recommend this excellent essay by Gloria Mark in the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 6, 2023): How to Restore Our Dwindling Attention Spans. The article can also be listened to on the website (7 minutes).
Digital distractions are ramping up our natural tendency to shift focus, raising stress levels and hurting productivity. But we can still take control.
Gloria Mark began studying peoples’ relationships with technology about two decades ago. The concern arose from measuring the shrinking attention spans of hundreds of knowledge workers in a variety of work roles.
To study peoples’ attention on their devices Gloria Mark worked with her research team at the University of California, Irvine and with colleagues at Microsoft Research. Sophisticated computer logging techniques were used to measure attention spans and heart rate monitors and wearable devices to measure stress.
The article outlines the process used and the findings.
