Distractions are everywhere. While writing this article, I stopped for a moment to check Twitter. Phones are everywhere and demand our attention. The law of dopamine hits. However, despite the potentially greater potential for distraction, large studies have shown that standardized tests Improves concentration (sparingly) For adults.
The present cross-temporal meta-analysis investigates potential changes in attention test scores as assessed by the D2 test of attention. Based on data from 287 independent samples (N = 21,291) from 32 countries over a period of 31 years (1990-2021), we found evidence of moderate generational test score gains in adult concentration, but (statistics AT) but not in children.
I don't put too much weight into these results as they are correlated and only by country, but note the following:
The Internet actively exploits predicted concentration performance, with small effects for children but no meaningful effects for adults. This appears to be in contrast to research findings that show that: harmful effects Increased overall screen time due to general digitization, video games, media multitasking, and attention functions in particular….
Of course, this is probably measuring attentiveness in a test where a cell phone was taken away. In other words, while the environment may have made deep work more difficult, people still remained focused in a less-distracted environment. Or perhaps in the past, people just daydreamed instead of checking their phones.