# Are Attention Spans Really Shrinking?

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 1 Jul 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/68a22f5c-c47b-4bdf-84ee-b470005e4321/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

For years we've been told that screens, social media and short-form videos are destroying our ability to focus. But the latest research tells a very different story. In this Doctor's Desk episode, Justin and Kylie unpack a major new study published in Nature that challenges one of the biggest myths in parenting. Discover why attention spans may not be shrinking after all, what's really stealing our focus, and the practical changes that can help both you and your children concentrate on what matters most. If homework feels impossible, everyone is glued to their phones, or you're constantly switching between tasks, this episode offers hope—and solutions. KEY POINTS • Why the "goldfish attention span" myth doesn't stand up to the evidence. • The surprising difference between an attention problem and a distraction problem. • How today's environments compete for our focus. • The three types of attention every parent should understand. • Practical ways to reduce distractions at home and improve focus naturally. • Why meaningful, engaging activities hold attention far better than we think. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "We don't have an attention span problem. We have a distraction problem." RESOURCES • New attention research published in Nature • Freedom app (website blocker) • Brick device (block distracting apps from phone) ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Turn off unnecessary notifications. • Create distraction-free times for homework and family activities. • Encourage hobbies that naturally absorb your child's attention. • Delay acting on the urge to check your phone by a few minutes. • Work in focused blocks followed by short breaks. • Look at your child's environment before assuming they have an attention problem. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. What is it
[0:08] Speaker 1: with our attention spans? Are they're getting worse? Is short
[0:11] Speaker 1: form video content pushed into our lives by algorithms making
[0:15] Speaker 1: our ability to focus on anything diminish? Is there any
[0:20] Speaker 1: science that can help us? What's going on with kids
[0:22] Speaker 1: and school and their ability to focus? Is just us?
[0:26] Speaker 1: Is it a sign of the times? Is it our brains?
[0:29] Speaker 1: Is tech the reason that everything is falling apart? Today
[0:32] Speaker 1: it's a doctor's desk episode of the Happy Families Podcast
[0:35] Speaker 1: where we have a look at a brand new study
[0:36] Speaker 1: published in Nature, one of the world's leading science journals.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Some researchers have been unpacking attention spans goldfish. I wonder
[0:46] Speaker 1: we find out more next, including how we can help
[0:50] Speaker 1: our kids to pay more attention. Oh and us too,
[0:53] Speaker 1: It's right after this stay with us. Hello, Welcome to
[0:58] Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast. You get real parenting solutions every
[1:01] Speaker 1: single day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
[1:04] Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Colson. We're the parents of six children
[1:08] Speaker 1: whose attention spans sometimes troubleous, sometimes concern us. Have you
[1:13] Speaker 1: said that, Kylie? I just started talking and I feel
[1:15] Speaker 1: like I lost you as well? Are you with me?
[1:16] Speaker 1: Have I got you for this doctor's Desk episode? Fully
[1:19] Speaker 1: attentive and on board?
[1:20] Speaker 2: You No, you lost me. You're giving me You lost
[1:23] Speaker 2: me as soon as you said doctors, you're.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Giving me that look that one of our daughters gives
[1:27] Speaker 1: us through the top of the eyes, kind of like,
[1:29] Speaker 1: are you're really doing this to me? All right? Today
[1:31] Speaker 1: a conversation around attention spans. You don't know what this
[1:35] Speaker 1: science is about. All you know is the general topic
[1:37] Speaker 1: of today's podcast, which means that you get to ask
[1:39] Speaker 1: the great questions. But I've got one for you. First.
[1:42] Speaker 1: What have you heard? What would you understand would be
[1:45] Speaker 1: going on with attention spans? What are people talking about
[1:48] Speaker 1: when it comes to attention spans now that it's twenty
[1:50] Speaker 1: twenty six and the world is so modern and technologically driven.
[1:54] Speaker 2: I would suggest, based on the fact that nearly every
[1:58] Speaker 2: other person I speak to is either being diagnosed with
[2:01] Speaker 2: ADHD as an adult or has a child being diagnosed
[2:05] Speaker 2: with ADHD, that it would seem attention spans are growing
[2:11] Speaker 2: smaller and smaller by the day.
[2:12] Speaker 1: Okay, so ADHD literally it's in the title attention deficit. Yeah,
[2:18] Speaker 1: A regular disorder. So you're suggesting that the world's changing
[2:21] Speaker 1: and people just can't concentrate like they used to.
[2:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think it screens.
[2:30] Speaker 1: Oh say more.
[2:32] Speaker 2: I just can only go from my own personal experience,
[2:35] Speaker 2: And I remember before I was a parent how attentive
[2:39] Speaker 2: I was when I would go to a seminar, for instance,
[2:42] Speaker 2: I could sit there and listen to someone speak to
[2:44] Speaker 2: me for an hour and a half and be completely
[2:47] Speaker 2: engrossed in what they were sharing. Once I became a parent,
[2:52] Speaker 2: and I was obviously distracted a lot with a young baby.
[2:57] Speaker 2: You needed to be fed, needed to be berthed, needed
[2:59] Speaker 2: to be changed, needed to stand up in rock or whatever.
[3:02] Speaker 2: And I found even once I got past that stage
[3:06] Speaker 2: of parenting, I actually no longer could stay focused for
[3:12] Speaker 2: that amount of time. Yeah.
[3:13] Speaker 1: So do you think that parenting exhaustion the need to
[3:17] Speaker 1: worry about the laundry, the cooking, the appointments, the library bag.
[3:22] Speaker 2: I think it's the inability to be in the moment.
[3:26] Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Okay, So attention spans it.
[3:29] Speaker 2: Because all of those things matter as a parent and
[3:32] Speaker 2: as specifically as a mum. From my personal experience, I'm
[3:36] Speaker 2: usually somewhere physically, but my mind is going one hundred
[3:40] Speaker 2: miles an hour thinking about all of the other tasks
[3:43] Speaker 2: that need to be completed before I get to sit
[3:46] Speaker 2: down for the day.
[3:47] Speaker 1: Discreens have anything to do with attention span reduction, as
[3:50] Speaker 1: you're hypothesizing, I definitely think.
[3:53] Speaker 2: They play a part, but I don't think that they're
[3:54] Speaker 2: the cause.
[3:55] Speaker 1: Okay, may I may I indulge myself with a little
[3:59] Speaker 1: bit of doctor's desks. Cis Okay, here we go. So
[4:01] Speaker 1: there's good news and bad news around it. First of all,
[4:03] Speaker 1: the narrative that I hear all the time, and I
[4:05] Speaker 1: certainly read it in a whole lot of blogs and
[4:10] Speaker 1: articles and that sort of thing is that attention spans
[4:12] Speaker 1: are diminishing. People keep on talking about how, thanks to
[4:15] Speaker 1: short form video, we now have the attention span of
[4:17] Speaker 1: a goldfish. We can't concentrate on anything for more than
[4:20] Speaker 1: about eight seconds. There's also a whole lot of occupational
[4:24] Speaker 1: and organizational psychology work talking about task switching and how
[4:27] Speaker 1: because emails are always coming into our inbox and going ding,
[4:30] Speaker 1: and we've got our slack messages and whatever else, there's
[4:34] Speaker 1: never ending tasks switching and when you get off a task.
[4:36] Speaker 1: It takes, depending on who you read and what you
[4:39] Speaker 1: have heard, somewhere between eight and fifteen minutes to get
[4:42] Speaker 1: back on task. Like task switching is costly, and we
[4:45] Speaker 1: task switch every few minutes, which means that we're never
[4:47] Speaker 1: fully on task. The whole premise, therefore, is that our
[4:52] Speaker 1: attentional ability is dropping. But I've got good news and
[4:57] Speaker 1: I've got bad news.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Well that sounds like bad news, then well.
[5:03] Speaker 1: That's the hypothesis. That's what people are saying. The bad
[5:06] Speaker 1: news is this, we are very distracted. We're very, very
[5:10] Speaker 1: very very distracted. Some data noun sugg just the average
[5:15] Speaker 1: adults checking their phone north of one hundred times per day,
[5:19] Speaker 1: which is just massive, and in fact, some data I've
[5:21] Speaker 1: suggested could even be as high as two hundred times
[5:24] Speaker 1: per day that we're checking our phone. So you talk
[5:26] Speaker 1: about attention span, I'm doing something, it's boring me. What
[5:29] Speaker 1: am I going to do? I'm going to open up
[5:30] Speaker 1: my phone and see if I've got any notifications. And
[5:32] Speaker 1: so therefore the idea is that our attention spans are
[5:36] Speaker 1: dropping because we are not able to pay attention. The
[5:38] Speaker 1: good news, though, the good news is that there is
[5:42] Speaker 1: a very very big difference between our ability to pay
[5:46] Speaker 1: attention and what we actually do in the real world
[5:50] Speaker 1: when we're surrounded by distractions. We don't have any good
[5:54] Speaker 1: evidence at all that attention spans have declined. In spite
[5:58] Speaker 1: of all of the headlines and all the things that
[6:00] Speaker 1: people are saying, We're not struggling to pay attention when
[6:05] Speaker 1: the environment gives us something that is attention worthy.
[6:09] Speaker 2: Wait, you watch a good movie exactly, for instance, and
[6:12] Speaker 2: you can sit there and be fully engaged. You go
[6:15] Speaker 2: to a musical and you're at the theater, you don't
[6:18] Speaker 2: have any problems.
[6:19] Speaker 1: Generally speaking, people aren't whipping out their phones in the theater.
[6:21] Speaker 1: They sit there and they watch it, and they're fully
[6:23] Speaker 1: engrossed and engaged. So what the research seems to be suggesting,
[6:27] Speaker 1: And there was a brand new study in Nature recently
[6:29] Speaker 1: that I'm referring to, But at twenty twenty four meta
[6:32] Speaker 1: analysi as well, two hundred and eighty seven studies there
[6:36] Speaker 1: spanning thirty one years from nineteen ninety to twenty twenty
[6:39] Speaker 1: one showed again no change in attention abilities over time.
[6:43] Speaker 1: In fact, adults got better at paying attention. So we
[6:46] Speaker 1: don't have an attention span problem. We have a distraction problem.
[6:48] Speaker 1: We have an environment problem, which means that if people
[6:52] Speaker 1: are not paying attention, it's probably more to do with
[6:55] Speaker 1: the environment than it is them, and that includes neurodivergence.
[7:00] Speaker 1: By the way, I've made no secret on this podcast
[7:02] Speaker 1: that I'm very, very hesitant to go too far down
[7:05] Speaker 1: the neurodivergence pathway as an answer for everything. There's an
[7:08] Speaker 1: excuse for everything. I don't pretend that ADHD isn't a thing,
[7:11] Speaker 1: but what I argue very strongly is that if we
[7:13] Speaker 1: get the environmental conditions right, the symptoms and behaviors associated
[7:17] Speaker 1: with ADHD generally disappear or they reduce so much that
[7:20] Speaker 1: they're no longer causing dysfunction. And what the research here
[7:25] Speaker 1: around attention spans is suggesting is exactly the same. We
[7:30] Speaker 1: don't have an attention span problem. We don't have an
[7:32] Speaker 1: attention disorder. We have an environment challenge. That is, we
[7:39] Speaker 1: get distracted because what's going on isn't meeting our attentional needs.
[7:45] Speaker 1: Full stop. End of story. So after break, as we
[7:48] Speaker 1: get really into the weeds of this conversation, we're going
[7:51] Speaker 1: to talk about what we can do to make our
[7:54] Speaker 1: environments less distracting, which means that whether we're neurodiversent or neurotypical,
[8:00] Speaker 1: and our children will be able to provide a greater
[8:04] Speaker 1: level of attention because there's a lower level of distraction
[8:08] Speaker 1: to the stuff that needs to happen. Stay with this, Okay,
[8:18] Speaker 1: this is the Happy Families podcast. We're back. Thanks so
[8:20] Speaker 1: much for joining us as we have a look at
[8:22] Speaker 1: the different ways that we can help to sustain attention,
[8:26] Speaker 1: reduce distraction, and keep people focused on the stuff that matters.
[8:31] Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if you know that this is
[8:33] Speaker 2: actually a parenting podcast and telling people to not have
[8:36] Speaker 2: children in order to allay distractions. It's not going to
[8:41] Speaker 2: be very helpful.
[8:42] Speaker 1: You're such a joker. Before we talk about how to
[8:45] Speaker 1: help attention to work better, help help people to stay
[8:47] Speaker 1: on task, pay attention. There are three different kinds of
[8:50] Speaker 1: attention that we really need to talk about.
[8:52] Speaker 2: Well, can you define attention span? Yeah?
[8:55] Speaker 1: So attention span is how long you can do these
[8:57] Speaker 1: three things? Right? So number one sustained attention, and that
[9:00] Speaker 1: is the ability to stick with something over time. Can
[9:02] Speaker 1: I sustain my focus on this thing.
[9:05] Speaker 2: As in a timeframe, as in half an hour? Yeah?
[9:10] Speaker 2: Six months?
[9:10] Speaker 1: Oh, no, No, we're talking about just here in the moment.
[9:13] Speaker 2: Yes.
[9:13] Speaker 1: Absolutely. Then there's this thing called selective attention, and that's
[9:17] Speaker 1: where I'm able to say, I'm going to prioritize the
[9:19] Speaker 1: thing that I'm working on over all the other things
[9:21] Speaker 1: that are vying for my focus. So when I'm writing
[9:23] Speaker 1: my books and articles, or preparing a podcast for that matter,
[9:27] Speaker 1: my ability to say, yes, I know YouTube exists, Yes,
[9:30] Speaker 1: I know that podcasts exist. Yes, I know that I've
[9:33] Speaker 1: got a bicycle in the corner of my office that
[9:35] Speaker 1: is runny.
[9:36] Speaker 2: Yes, i know the dishes need doing and dinner needs
[9:38] Speaker 2: to be cooked, but I've got my sewing machine out
[9:40] Speaker 2: and i don't want to pack it away until I'm finished.
[9:44] Speaker 1: Right, So there's all these things competing, and selective attention
[9:47] Speaker 1: means that I'm going to put all of those things
[9:48] Speaker 1: out of my mind and I'm just going to do
[9:50] Speaker 1: the one thing that matters most. I'm really good at that,
[9:52] Speaker 1: So sustained attention and selective attention, I'm selectively sustaining my
[9:56] Speaker 1: attention on the one thing that needs to be there.
[9:58] Speaker 1: And executive control is sort of an amplifier of all
[10:01] Speaker 1: of this. This is how we pay attention hold the
[10:03] Speaker 1: right stuff in our mind, focus on what's important, tune
[10:06] Speaker 1: out the distractions, and that kind of thing.
[10:08] Speaker 2: Not so good at that.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Well, all of them work together to help us to
[10:12] Speaker 1: have an attention span. But that's why we reach for
[10:15] Speaker 1: our phone, right because if we are thinking, I'm not
[10:18] Speaker 1: really into what's going on, I don't want to pay
[10:20] Speaker 1: attention to it. I'm feeling a bit distracted. I'm feeling
[10:23] Speaker 1: a bit overwhelmed. I just need a break. By the way,
[10:25] Speaker 1: it's a terrible way to take a break. Your brain
[10:27] Speaker 1: doesn't get a break when you pull your phone out.
[10:30] Speaker 1: That's what's going on.
[10:31] Speaker 2: It's so interesting. A few weeks ago we talked about
[10:34] Speaker 2: this on the podcast. I surprised you with a date
[10:37] Speaker 2: night out and we went and did pottery, and you
[10:41] Speaker 2: looked at me like, what are you doing right? And
[10:44] Speaker 2: yet two hours disappeared in the blink.
[10:48] Speaker 1: Of an eye lost myself in it.
[10:50] Speaker 2: You didn't think once to pick up your phone. Oh no,
[10:52] Speaker 2: you didn't even actually want to have a conversation with me.
[10:55] Speaker 2: You were just so engrossed in creating and being right.
[11:00] Speaker 1: It wasn't much of a date night, was it.
[11:01] Speaker 2: When I would make it was so much fun because
[11:03] Speaker 2: I got to see you in a completely different light,
[11:06] Speaker 2: Like I get to watch you when you're on stage
[11:10] Speaker 2: and you're talking to people and your whole being lights up,
[11:13] Speaker 2: like you love doing what you're doing, and you're completely
[11:16] Speaker 2: in the moment in that space.
[11:17] Speaker 1: So that's selective attention and sustained attention and a whole
[11:20] Speaker 1: lot of executive function going on, but.
[11:21] Speaker 2: You're really switched on. Yeah, this was a totally different
[11:25] Speaker 2: experience where it was almost like you were able to
[11:27] Speaker 2: switch off.
[11:28] Speaker 1: I was tuned in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So let's
[11:32] Speaker 1: about me and more about what it's interesting as well.
[11:34] Speaker 1: When you're doing pottery, you can't pick up your phone.
[11:38] Speaker 2: I tried because I had to get some I had
[11:40] Speaker 2: to get some footage to prove to everybody that you
[11:43] Speaker 2: actually did it and enjoyed it.
[11:45] Speaker 1: That's true, that's true.
[11:46] Speaker 2: But it did make a mess.
[11:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. So we're running short on time.
[11:51] Speaker 1: The takeaway here before we talk about how to create
[11:53] Speaker 1: an environment that reduces distraction is simply to say that
[11:58] Speaker 1: we are not losing our ability to pay it a time.
[12:00] Speaker 1: If anything, our attention spans are as good as, if
[12:02] Speaker 1: not better than they ever have been.
[12:04] Speaker 2: Is it because we're filling our lives with things that
[12:06] Speaker 2: don't have meaning like this mind like it's just all mundane,
[12:12] Speaker 2: meaningless tasks that don't.
[12:14] Speaker 1: They're not elevating us. They're not they're not lifting We're putting.
[12:18] Speaker 2: Our time and energy into things that aren't actually fulfilling us.
[12:21] Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because it's so funny. You talk to somebody
[12:23] Speaker 1: who gets out of the garden and they're like, I
[12:25] Speaker 1: can lose a day in the garden, I can lose
[12:27] Speaker 1: half a day, I can lose an hour or whatever,
[12:28] Speaker 1: because it's one of those things where I'm just going
[12:31] Speaker 1: to pay attention to what I'm doing. I'm in the moment,
[12:34] Speaker 1: and it's so good for us. So I wanted, just
[12:37] Speaker 1: in the last minute or to talk about some strategies
[12:40] Speaker 1: for how we can reclaim our attention, reduce distraction.
[12:45] Speaker 2: Can we actually improve it?
[12:47] Speaker 1: I don't think we need to improve our attention span
[12:49] Speaker 1: so much as a general rules, get the environment. It
[12:52] Speaker 1: will improve simply by making the environment less distracting.
[12:56] Speaker 2: Okay, so we go back to my original statements, and
[12:59] Speaker 2: we have children in the house, how do you reduce distraction?
[13:02] Speaker 1: And part of that is also making sure that the
[13:04] Speaker 1: tasks you do are the kinds of things that you
[13:07] Speaker 1: want to pay attention to, and life is not always
[13:09] Speaker 1: like that. There's a whole lot of stuff that we
[13:11] Speaker 1: have to do that is not like the.
[13:13] Speaker 2: Dishes and the laundry and cooking and cleaning.
[13:16] Speaker 1: I quite like doing the dishes. I kind of get
[13:18] Speaker 1: lost in the sink.
[13:19] Speaker 2: I haven't done them for a while.
[13:20] Speaker 1: I'm just saying I did them at lunch yesterday, thank
[13:23] Speaker 1: you very much. And there's been a lot going on
[13:24] Speaker 1: in our lives lately. I'm feeling a little bit targeted
[13:28] Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Kylie technical strategies. I've removed social
[13:32] Speaker 1: media from my devices. It's not on my computer, it's
[13:35] Speaker 1: not on my phone. I just don't have access to
[13:37] Speaker 1: social media anymore. We still have the social media accounts
[13:39] Speaker 1: because the team has to run that for me, but
[13:41] Speaker 1: I'm not on there. Not everybody's willing to do that,
[13:44] Speaker 1: and that makes sense. But you can turn off your notifications.
[13:47] Speaker 1: That makes a huge difference, so that you're only getting
[13:50] Speaker 1: telephone calls and text messages. They're pretty much the unly
[13:52] Speaker 1: notifications that I get. I did turn on Slack because
[13:55] Speaker 1: sometimes the team needs me and I do have to
[13:57] Speaker 1: be responsive to my team, but fortunately that's not a
[14:00] Speaker 1: major distraction. You can block distracting websites. I use the
[14:04] Speaker 1: Freedom app on my phone. Well, I don't need to
[14:07] Speaker 1: use it anymo because I've got rid of all the distractions.
[14:08] Speaker 1: But the Freedom app and similar kinds of things are useful.
[14:14] Speaker 1: We've given our daughter a dumb phone and that's been
[14:17] Speaker 1: really helpful as well.
[14:18] Speaker 2: Well, it's not even a dumb phone.
[14:19] Speaker 1: It's a land I've got a landline. Yeah, so that
[14:23] Speaker 1: works really well. There's a bunch of things that you
[14:25] Speaker 1: can do behaviorally. I really like the whole I'm just
[14:29] Speaker 1: going to work really solidly for the next twenty five
[14:31] Speaker 1: minutes or forty five minutes or eighty five minutes, and
[14:34] Speaker 1: then I'm going to give myself a five minute break
[14:36] Speaker 1: or a fifteen minute break. So you just say no
[14:38] Speaker 1: distractions until this task is done.
[14:41] Speaker 2: I put my phone on do not disturb. It's on
[14:42] Speaker 2: do not disturb most of the time.
[14:44] Speaker 1: Great one yep. Another thing that I find is really
[14:47] Speaker 1: really good is that if you just do what you're doing,
[14:50] Speaker 1: but do it in a new location, so you kind
[14:52] Speaker 1: of get used to all the things that can distract
[14:54] Speaker 1: you in one environment, so go to another environment and
[14:56] Speaker 1: just focus. I used to do this when I was
[14:58] Speaker 1: writing or doing my doctorate. I would go to the
[15:01] Speaker 1: library at the university, or I would even go and
[15:03] Speaker 1: get on a train, because once you're on a train,
[15:06] Speaker 1: there's nothing else you can do except get the work done.
[15:08] Speaker 1: I'd pay for a ticket and sit on a train
[15:10] Speaker 1: for an hour and a half ago in one direction.
[15:12] Speaker 1: Then I'd get off at the train station and an
[15:15] Speaker 1: hour and a half back in the other direction, and
[15:17] Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how much work I would get done
[15:19] Speaker 1: in that time. Obviously, that's not going to work for everybody,
[15:22] Speaker 1: because we're always in different so we have children, yeah,
[15:25] Speaker 1: and sometimes we can't get out of the house. Like
[15:27] Speaker 1: the ironing. You can't take the inning with you on
[15:29] Speaker 1: the train so that you can get the ironing.
[15:30] Speaker 2: Does anyone iron these days? Except for me? Every time
[15:33] Speaker 2: I talk to people, they look at me like I'm weird. Really, yep,
[15:36] Speaker 2: they don't iron. I couldn't survive without a nine.
[15:39] Speaker 1: And the last thing that I'm going to suggest is
[15:42] Speaker 1: something that I learned years ago, Like when I was
[15:44] Speaker 1: doing a psychology course I reckon twenty years ago. They
[15:47] Speaker 1: talked about how when you get the urge to do something,
[15:51] Speaker 1: you just sort of ride the urge, but you don't
[15:54] Speaker 1: actually indulge in it. So you say, I'm beginning to
[15:56] Speaker 1: notice that I'm feeling like I should pull out my phone.
[15:58] Speaker 2: Wow, that's a really life sentence.
[16:00] Speaker 1: I know. But when you say that to yourself, you're
[16:02] Speaker 1: sort of standing outside yourself. You're noticing the urge, but
[16:05] Speaker 1: you don't pull the phone out, And then you make
[16:07] Speaker 1: a commitment to yourself. You just say, if I still
[16:09] Speaker 1: have that urge to pull out my phone in the
[16:10] Speaker 1: next in ten minutes, then I'll give myself a break
[16:13] Speaker 1: and I'll have a look at it. But right now
[16:15] Speaker 1: I'm going to just let the urge be there while
[16:17] Speaker 1: I keep doing what I've committed to do. Folks on
[16:20] Speaker 1: my child, cook the dinner, whatever the thing is, and
[16:23] Speaker 1: ten minutes later, you've usually forgotten because you get back
[16:26] Speaker 1: into you become really involved and mindful and present in
[16:29] Speaker 1: the thing that you're doing. So there are some ideas
[16:31] Speaker 1: to help to minimize distractions. I hope they're useful, but
[16:35] Speaker 1: really the main take our message from this Doctor's Desk
[16:37] Speaker 1: episode is that attention spans are not shrinking. The difficulty
[16:42] Speaker 1: that we have is that our environments becoming more distracting,
[16:45] Speaker 1: and if we improve our environments, we find that attention
[16:48] Speaker 1: spans go way back up to where they should be,
[16:52] Speaker 1: could be, would be if we've let them.
[16:54] Speaker 2: I'm going back to my bubble, Your bubble, what bubble
[16:57] Speaker 2: where there's no distractions?
[16:59] Speaker 1: Do you I like bubbles? The Happy Families podcast is
[17:02] Speaker 1: produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides
[17:05] Speaker 1: our additional research and admin support. If you'd like more
[17:08] Speaker 1: info to make your family happier, visitors at happy families
[17:11] Speaker 1: dot com dot a

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