attention span

Her

Her

  • Very Chatty Chatot Chatty Chatot Cherish Ball Gold Heart
    • 11,359
    Posts
    17
    Years
    • Seen Jun 6, 2025
    i think i've told like eight people about this lately because i keep forgetting who i talk to.....

    ever since 2014 my attention span has degraded to a rather abysmal state :/ i can barely sit through a movie, even one i love, without having to pause it like five times because nothing can keep my attention span for more than 20 minutes! in this same time period, i've probably read like... two or three books (outside of non-fiction) from cover to cover because i literally lose interest after two pages unless it's an ebook or something :( and even then i think the last one i properly read was lace by shirley conran, sometime at the end of last year lmao. it's not that my interest or love for these things has died, it's that my ability to focus on something for more than 20 minutes has rapidly declined and is still declining :/

    can any of you relate????
     
    I have a pretty good attention span for a ~~~millennial~~~ (or am I Gen Z idk) I think, my problem when it comes to consuming media like books or watching movies is either remembering that's a thing I can do or just finding the motivation to start. Once I do start though I try my best to finish it in one sitting. I kind of do that with most things, including food and homework. If I leave it halfway through I go the rest of my day feeling like I'm forgetting something and I'd rather just get it out of the way.

    My sister, on the other hand, is so infuriating. At one point she was watching the third Captain America film with me (which she asked to watch!), asked me to pause it so she could go get a drink, and when I went downstairs she was on her computer, watching another show, which she later went on to ALSO pause to watch some vines. Like, jesus.
     
    Spherical Ice said:
    My sister, on the other hand, is so infuriating. At one point she was watching the third Captain America film with me (which she asked to watch!), asked me to pause it so she could go get a drink, and when I went downstairs she was on her computer, watching another show, which she later went on to ALSO pause to watch some vines. Like, jesus.
    Click to expand...

    okay i'm both you and your sister in this scenario

    i loved making her watch scary/horror films when she was like eight or nine and now she requests them constantly
    and she'll sit through like... 30 minutes of one before she says she's going to 'get a drink', 'go talk to mum' or something like that
    two minutes later she's watching cameron dallas or whoever on her ipad
     
    Yeah, I have also noticed my attention span go down the drain. I always thought it had something to do with the rise of smartphones. Never A Dull Moment when you can browse Facebook, Twitter, Instagram at any given time. I'm not used to sitting around waiting. Plus who wants to wait that shit is boring.

    One of the few things that does consistently hold my attention is video gaming lol. I'll concentrate in Overwatch for two hours straight no problem.
     
    I can certainly identify with this problem myself. I'm legitimately diagnosed with ADHD at the tender age of 12; so my attention span is...nooooot that great. Mostly though I'm able to focus if I can stimulate my mind. Caffeine is really good for this when needed. However I can usually quickly shift focus and this can be useful sometimes. It makes me a pretty darn good generalist. I can typically multitask pretty well.

    This makes technology an astonishingly easy fit for me; particularly technology that I can multitask with. As for holding my attention span on specific tasks; I can do it fairly well usually. Things can hold my attention for hours at a time as long as the task is engaging enough. I do get bored pretty quickly though with dull things, and can struggle with those at times.
     
    I think my attention span is pretty good, actually. I watch a lot of movies and rarely have to pause them unless I have to use the bathroom or something, and I usually either put my phone away or just have the Willpower to not look at it. I have no trouble finishing books either. weirdly enough the one thing I can't really stay focused on to the end is a video game, or at least that's the thing that gives me the most trouble. idk why this is.
     
    I do find myself pausing videos and such to look at Twitter, even if it's only 5 new tweets added since the last time I looked.
     
    Yeah mine too for certain things. Ever since getting my smartphone 2-3 years ago my attention span for non-mobile gaming has become nonexistent. I used to be able to play my 3DS for 5 hours at a time, now I'm lucky if I can get a 30 minute session in before I can't focus on it anymore... ha. /': There are some games that keep my interest more than others but most of the time I'd rather just open an app to check it quickly and do my thing.

    Otherwise I think my attention span is okay? I can watch TV shows and movies fine, but I can only pay attention to one thing at a time regardless lool.
     
    I actually have ADHD plus autism, so my attention span is pretty bad. I can't focus for very long on things. The only things I have been able to focus on is being able to write. If I listen to music also, my focus and attention span actually increases. I also take a stimulant, and that helps to increase my attention span and focus for much longer too. I have a hard time reading and watching a long movie because I just can't sit down long enough to do any of those things. I get up constantly, I fidget nonstop... it's just... omg. Sometimes, I also stim because of my autism.
     
    I thought I had a bad attention span, but reading everyone's comments here makes me think I don't have it so bad now.

    But I can relate. There's too much media and it's like having a hundred people trying to talk at you so you just can't keep up with it all even when you want to listen to one person.
     
    I can sort of! but I think my attention span has always been short, but lately it seems I get distracted too easily? I can hardly watch an ep of my fave anime without pausing it to do other shit.
     
    On some occasions, it can be pretty bad. I would originally plan to like read/comment on a fic or do some writing, but five minutes later I would be on Twitter/Tumblr/PC/etc or do something else oops. When it comes to like video games or watching a show/movie though I'm able to sit through the whole thing fine. I think with stuff like writing or commenting on a fic my energy goes wanting to be as detailed with those things while watching a show I can sit back and not worry too much.
     
    yeah it started with movies and books i just no longer could force myself to sit down and read/watch anything. then i started noticing if i clicked a video and it was more than say 3 minutes i already didn't even want to watch it. If I clicked an article and it seemed too long i would either just not read it at all or skip around and read.

    anyway it started freaking me out because i perceive that as not okay. so i started forcing myself to stick to something and read it and i also got back into some of the games i used to like because that required sitting through and putting my mind to something. it def worked because i now have more patience to get through things. I still will rarely watch a movie on my own unless i really want to see it.

    i blame my phone
     
    I have a great attention span in pretty much all of my classes. Except bio. Partly because im not super interested and partly because its the class I have before lunch and im really hungry.
     
    My attention span has always been atrocious, I always have so many projects I'm working on and I hardly ever see them through because of it. I just get distracted so easily by so many things, it's kind of really frustrating tbh.

    The only thing I can ever actually focus on is painting. It quiets my mile a minute mind and I can sit for hours hyper focused on it. It's my favorite hobby for this reason.
     
    I have an okay attention span, I think. I can typically focus on the task at hand pretty well.

    This sounds like a job interview.
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top