attention span

American  

noun

1. the interval during which an individual can concentrate, as on a single object, idea, or activity.

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Etymology

Origin of attention span

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

Instead, too many filmmakers took the crowd’s attention span for granted; even the strongest films in competition could delete a half-hour of dead air.

From Los Angeles Times • May 22, 2026

Slaymaker said he had noticed an increase in people using their phones in the cinema, which he put down to "changes in people's attention span".

From BBC • May 21, 2026

A panel of entertainment experts weighed in recently on what the future of entertainment might look like, between breakthroughs in technology, production costs coming down, and the evolving—or devolving—human attention span.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 23, 2026

“Cinema is more resistant to oblivion, and certainly longer-living than the short-lived attention span that the internet offers, while your urgency reaches places our films cannot,” Wenders said.

From Salon • Mar. 6, 2026

He’s spent four years on an experiment looking at whether a particular kind of scientifically engineered video game could improve the attention span and memory of people over the age of sixty.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel