Smartphones have given us worse attention spans than goldfish

Since I started writing this news story I have checked Twitter four times, opened and closed Facebook twice, released an odorless poison gas through your device's speakers and registered for tickets for a ridiculous DIY event where you get to drink craft beers while someone teaches you how to do basic DIY like putting up pictures and tiling which is one of the most East London things I have ever signed up for.

So I don't find it all that hard to believe that our collective average attention spans have dropped to eight seconds, as Microsoft found after surveying 2000 people and EEG-ing 180 of them to monitor their brain activity.

In 2000 we could manage 12 seconds. The average goldfish manages nine seconds. And you and I are now maintaining a solid eight.

And what do you suppose is causing this dip in attention span? You guessed it: technology. It's all down to- oh, wait, I lost you. I guess you'll never know the good news about our ability to multi-task increasing, nor where I hid the antidote (under the flowerpot by the front door).

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