Cisco Writers Club

Rendezvous With Writing

The Writer’s Attention Span

My attention span has shrunk the past couple of years. I started to notice it when working on twisty plot problems and when reading difficult books. Apparently, I’m not alone. Johann Hari wrote a whole book about our shrinking attention spans. In Stolen Focus (Crown, 2022), Hari explains that short form content (like TikTok videos and X posts), social media in general, and ease of content (you don’t exercise your concentration if something’s too easy) have robbed us of our ability to think deeply and for long periods of time.