How is TikTok rewiring our Attention Spans?
- Janavi Senthil Kumar
- Nov 23, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 27, 2025
Author: Janavi Senthil Kumar
Do you recall the last time you sat through an entire movie without checking your phone once? Or read a book without skimming through?
In a world filled with social media, technology, and endless sources of entertainment controlling us, it is more difficult to stay focused than ever.
Image Source: Illustrated by Renee Zhang
Perhaps it is social media, painted as a villain behind our distractions. The truth is that our brains have adapted to the new normal of scrolling.
This is a rush of dopamine every time a new notification pops up, changing our behaviors. Over time, these new online habits play a role in how we think, work, and interact, deeply impacting our daily routines. However, is social media really to blame, or is it us, swiftly adapting to new forms of obtaining information?
This article will discuss how our attention spans work, the science behind it, and what we can do to stay focused. how tik tok wires changes our attentions span
What is attention span and why does it matter?
Attention span is defined as “the length of time a person can focus on a particular task or activity without getting distracted” (American Psychological Association, 2018).
There are two main systems that manage our attention: voluntary and involuntary.
Voluntary attention is known as consciousness and needs high effort, which is used at work, study and constant goal-driven tasks. On the other hand, involuntary attention is our automatic response to notifications or other external distractions.
Involuntary attention is a form of alert that our brain tells us to keep away from danger. Now we utilize it for scrolling (BNS Institute, 2024). However, modern technology has made us lean towards involuntary attention in the wrong way, impacting our attention system.
The prefrontal cortex, found in the front part of the brain, controls the basis of our attention: how we recall, learn, and make choices (Clinic, 2025). For students, attention is a way to seek knowledge through lectures, notes, or books that move into our long-term memory. When attention starts to shift, due to rapid content and multitasking, it breaks the memory.
Making it difficult to remember anything, even after reading a paragraph. Moreover, in our daily lives, it keeps us sane, organized, and focused on finishing small tasks that we began.
Image source: Shutterstock
The Dopamine rush of Scrolling
Dopamine is a chemical messenger in the brain that makes us feel good. It encourages us to keep scrolling like a reward. It is like an eye candy, every TikTok video is a quick, addictive and unpredictable tiny burst of dopamine in the brain, building anticipation.
In a 2023 clinical trial, researchers investigated how short-form videos have an impact on people’s memory and focus. They were instructed to use social media platforms while doing a task that inspected prospective memory, which is remembering to do an errand that was planned earlier.
The study proved that TikTok’s fast-paced and quick content made it difficult for people to remember their planned actions, weakening overall memory and influencing individuals’ ability to stay focused even on small tasks.
Hence, the more time a person spends changing between short-form videos, the more the brain draws towards quick bursts of knowledge. Psychologist Dr. Gloria Mark discovered that an average person switches their attention every 47 seconds when doing a single task on their computers, and it has decreased around 50% over the past decade (Mark, 2023).
She states how our brain’s capability to stay focused has not changed. However, the constant switching between videos causes the brain to expect fast changes, making normal tasks feel unfamiliar or slow.
Read More on: Stress in students and why it is rising.
What can we do to reclaim our focus?
There are several ways we can make our brains focus on tasks for students, parents, or even full-time workers, just the way we prioritize 2 hours of scrolling.
1. Flora app – while social media can be quite distracting, using it mindfully is important. The Flora app encourages people to remain off their phones by growing a virtual tree while they work. It is a good technique to concentrate; if you leave the app, your tree dies, motivating you to stay focused.
2. The Pomodoro technique – This study approach involves working for 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break and repeating the cycle four times. You can adjust the timing based on what suits you best, allowing longer study sessions and appropriate breaks.
3. Meditation – Dedicating just 10 minutes a day to meditation can significantly improve your attention span and train your brain to resist distractions.
4. Less online activities – Engaging in more offline activities, such as exercising, reading books, pursuing hobbies, or spending time with friends and family without a screen, can lead to better focus.
5. Deleting apps – For students facing exams or interviews that require intense focus, temporarily removing distracting apps may be necessary. This could also serve as a part of a reward system for completing goals or study sessions, providing a beneficial form of dopamine.
Conclusion
If you have made it this far without getting distracted, then you are already making a difference to your attention span. It is important to know that social media is here to stay.
However, it is all about us and our free will to be aware of how long we use it without immersing ourselves fully.
Being able to change our routines and digital habits is necessary to live today. Try new things, see what works for you. Everything could be possible if you put your mind to it, no matter what comes along. So, take a day of digital detox if that’s what works for you and build a life where you control your life rather than technology.
References
American Psychological Association. (2018, April 19). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Dictionary.apa.org.
Chiossi, F., Haliburton, L., Ou, C., Butz, A., & Schmidt, A. (2023). Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions: Effect of Context Switching On Prospective Memory. ArXiv:2302.03714 [Cs], 1.
Clinic, C. (2025, September 29). Prefrontal Cortex: What It Is, Function, Location & Damage. Cleveland Clinic.
Cristol, H., Mitchell, K., & McPhillips, A. (2024, July 9). What Is Dopamine? WebMD; WebMD.
Mark, G. (2023, February). Speaking of psychology: Why Our Attention Spans Are shrinking, with Gloria Mark, PhD. American Psychological Association.
Types of Attention: Voluntary, Involuntary, and Habitual • BNS Institute. (2024, March 18). BNS (B.Sc in Nursing) Institute.
Zhang, R. (2024).