Less Focused Than They Think — Why Attention Has to Be Taught
- Tricia Taylor
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
By Tricia Taylor
Recently, a teacher told me her students were adamant they could learn in the midst of distraction — Netflix on while studying science, texting while writing an essay. Young people, they said, have adapted. They can multitask. They even convinced the teacher.
When I heard this, I disagreed. Human brains have evolved over thousands of generations, not one or two. But it prompted me to dig a little deeper into the research on attention. It turns out I wasn't completely right — but neither were they.
First, a clarification: what we call ‘multitasking’ is really ‘task-switching’. The brain can't do two things at once, it can only alternate rapidly between them. That distinction matters, as we'll see. But I’ll use ‘multitask’ for this blog.
OUR BRAINS AND ATTENTION
Let's start with the basics. For information to enter working memory, we have to pay attention to it. What gets noticed enters working memory — where we actively think. What we actively think about has a chance of moving into long-term memory. Skip the first step, and meaningful learning doesn't happen.
Keep in mind, working memory is also limited. It holds roughly 4 items at once (Cowan, 2001). Distractions — TV dialogue, song lyrics, notifications — compete for the same limited space as reading and writing. Something always loses.
So the question remains: can young people multitask better than others? Have they adapted?
WHAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING: REALITY vs PERCEPTION
The students aren't lying when they say they aren’t affected by distraction. They genuinely feel fine. But, according to the research, that feeling is not trustworthy.
People who perform poorly at a task consistently overestimate how well they've done, because the very skills needed to perform well are the same ones needed to recognise poor performance. When those skills are compromised, so is self-monitoring. Divided attention doesn't just reduce performance — it reduces the ability to notice that performance has dropped. (Kruger & Dunning, 1999)
Researchers pushed this further, testing multitasking ability directly. The people most confident in their ‘multitasking’ ability were, statistically, the worst at it. While there may be rare exceptions, for most of us — especially when thinking hard — switching attention comes at a cost. (Sanbonmatsu et al., 2013)
So, ironically, the students most convinced they are unaffected may be the ones paying the highest price — in performance, retention, and the quality of their thinking.
The cost of multitasking isn't always immediate. Students who learn under distraction can still remember information, but often in a shallower way. They may recognise facts in familiar situations, yet struggle to apply ideas flexibly in unfamiliar ones. (Foerde, Knowlton & Poldrack, 2006).
That matters most when it counts: in exams, where students are expected to think, connect and transfer knowledge — writing a coherent argument or applying a concept to a problem they haven’t seen before.
BUT HAVE YOUNG PEOPLE ADAPTED?
In short — no. Not in any meaningful sense. Young people's brains haven't evolved to handle distraction better; evolution doesn't work that way. What has changed is habit. Repeated patterns of use may reinforce these tendencies — making distraction feel increasingly normal and focus increasingly effortful.
Frequent task-switching doesn't build a skill; it feeds a habit. It becomes a self-fulfilling trap: the false belief that you are good at multitasking leads you to do it more often. And the more often you do it, the more your brain assumes you must be good at it—all while your actual performance and learning continue to drop. And unlike evolution, that can be unlearned in our lifetime.
Behavioural conditioning plays a role too. The phone works like a slot machine, because the payoff is unpredictable, sometimes a message, sometimes nothing, the brain learns to keep checking. Researchers tracked how long people stayed on a single task before switching: from around two and a half minutes in 2004 to under a minute more recently. And, increasingly, people were initiating the interruption themselves. (Mark, 2023) The result: a brain increasingly wired to seek distraction, not manage it.
Again, none of this is irreversible.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR TEACHING
A student who can't pay attention may never have been taught how. Attention is a skill. Like any skill, it can be developed.
Clear routines matter. When students know how to enter the room, start work, and transition, they spend less mental effort on logistics and more on learning.
Let students experience the cost. Give them a passage to summarise with speech playing in the background, then repeat in silence. Then ask them: ‘Which felt easier? Which summary is better?’ They will feel and see the difference.
Be specific about when distraction matters most. Instrumental music during routine tasks may be fine. But complex thinking competes for the same limited space as background language — when the work gets harder, the environment needs to get quieter.
Build the skill. Start with short periods of phone-free, focused work and gradually extend them. Name it explicitly — this is attention training, not just a rule.
Give them a strategy, not just a rule. Twenty-five minutes focused, then a five-minute break (the Pomodoro approach) works with the brain rather than against it.
Signal what matters. Use verbal and visual cues: 'This is important,' fist-to-five check-ins, a deliberate pause. Students can't prioritise everything; help them know where to focus.
Keep returning to it. One conversation won't undo years of habit. Treat attention like a literacy skill — woven into the culture, referenced across subjects, built over time.
We can't control what happens at home. But we can help students become more aware of how attention works — and we can do the same for ourselves. Teachers aren't immune to the pull of distraction either. Writing this article made me more aware of that: the more we practise distraction, the worse it gets. A few simple strategies help: protecting focused work time and being intentional about when you pick up your phone.
Research referenced in this post
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioural and Brain Sciences. Read here
Kruger, J. & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognising one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Read here
Sanbonmatsu, D. M., et al. (2013). Who multi-tasks and why? Multi-tasking ability, perceived multi-tasking ability, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. PLOS One. Read here
Foerde, K., Knowlton, B. J., & Poldrack, R. A. (2006). Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read here
Mark, G. (2023). Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life. Hanover Square Press.
