Summer picks: Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back?
Science Weekly29 Jul 2025

Summer picks: Where did our attention spans go, and can we get them back?

In 2024, the Oxford English Dictionary announced its word of the year was ‘brain rot’. The term relates to the supposedly negative effects of consuming social media content, but it struck a chord more widely with many who feel they don’t have the mental capacity they once had. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying our waning attention spans for 20 years. In this episode from January 2025, she tells Madeleine Finlay why she believes our powers of concentration are not beyond rescue, and reveals her top tips for finding focus. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

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Episoder(296)

The immortal jellyfish and other mindblowing invertebrates

The immortal jellyfish and other mindblowing invertebrates

Each year the Guardian runs a competition to find the invertebrate of the year. To find out more about the 2026 nominees science editor Ian Sample hears from climate reporter Petra Stock, environment ...

13 Aug 15min

We’re reading less. And it’s making us stupid

We’re reading less. And it’s making us stupid

Books have never been trendier, but studies show that as more and more things compete for our frazzled attention spans, we’re reading less and less. This is a problem because reading has a wealth of c...

11 Aug 19min

Four types of thinker, the cyclosporiasis outbreak, and the UK’s biggest telescope threatened

Four types of thinker, the cyclosporiasis outbreak, and the UK’s biggest telescope threatened

Madeleine Finlay is joined by Ian Sample, Guardian science editor, to discuss three eye-catching science stories including an investigation that has identified four distinct types of thinker. Also on ...

6 Aug 22min

The fight to save a historic English landscape

The fight to save a historic English landscape

Madeleine Finlay travels to the Rothbury estate in Northumberland, in north-east England. It’s a piece of land that has been in the same family for 700 years, but now it has been put up for sale and t...

4 Aug 16min

Revisited: Saunas and cold plunges, where does the evidence stand?

Revisited: Saunas and cold plunges, where does the evidence stand?

Saunas and cold plunge pools are popping up everywhere in the UK, bringing fiery heat and icy cold to a beach, city farm or park near you. Their users will be ready with all the reasons why it’s good ...

30 Jul 16min

Revisited: The surprising science of dreams and nightmares

Revisited: The surprising science of dreams and nightmares

In this episode from January 2026, Ian Sample puts listeners’ questions about dreams and nightmares to Dr Michelle Carr, the director of the Dream Engineering Laboratory in Montreal’s Centre for Advan...

28 Jul 22min

Revisited: A Scottish tea mystery, episode three – a bag for life

Revisited: A Scottish tea mystery, episode three – a bag for life

Science correspondent Nicola Davis investigates the strange story of Tam O’Braan and his attempts to grow tea in Scotland. In episode three of this mini-series first broadcast in October 2025, all of ...

23 Jul 20min

Revisited: A Scottish tea mystery, episode two – the list

Revisited: A Scottish tea mystery, episode two – the list

Science correspondent Nicola Davis investigates the strange story of Tam O’Braan and his attempts to grow tea in Scotland. In episode two of this mini-series first broadcast in October 2025, Nicola he...

22 Jul 23min

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