Attention Span Scam

“I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies. …The Lord lives! Blessed be the Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted.”
- Psalm 18:3,46

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be. Or are they?

According to research reported on by the American Psychological Association, attention spans have decreased from around 2 1/2 minutes in 2004 to just about 47 seconds in recent years. Lots of reasons exist for this according to psychologists commenting on the research: social media, information overload, AI, screen time, entertainment models, etc.

Can I call hogwash on all this? I completely disagree. We have allowed this idea of attention spans to become a scam that dictates our society. We then alter our efforts to accommodate the model and in consequence perpetuate it further.

The recent epitome of declining attention span comes from the 2009 Pixar movie Up! (Pete Doctor), where Dug (the overweight Golden Retriever) is constantly distracted by what he thinks is a squirrel. Saying “Squirrel!” has become a conversational phrase to acknowledge someone has been distracted. But have you ever considered it was the conversation distracting Dug from his primary purpose of retrieving squirrels? Just a thought.

There is absolutely no doubt we live in a culture of information overload and distraction. Everyone in my family will attest I’m majorly ADHD (although I’ve never been tested), and yet I can spend hours focused on a singular task and think consistently through a task for weeks and even months in the background. Why? Because it is my purpose and passion.

I don’t believe we have an attention span problem. I think we have millions of people around the world who are functioning without purpose. People who are reacting to the world rather than deciding who they are going to be in it. I believe it is a scam from the Evil One to distract us from being who God called us to be while we sit idly by blaming it on just being the way the world is now.

A classic example is Psalm 18. Through 50 verses David pours out his heart after his deliverance from the hand of Saul. He goes into minute detail as to how God saved, protected and sustained him. However, for many Christians we have boiled the entire Psalm down into two verses. And we turned them into a song; “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies. The Lord liveth, blessed be the Rock! May the God of my salvation be exalted!” (From Psalm 18:3,46). Most of us don’t even know the other three verses. Me included.

However, it is in the details we find the meat that sustains us. It is the story that gives substance to the two verses we pull out. The rest of the Psalm is the enlightenment we can apply to our current struggles so we can claim those two verses. It shows a man with purpose. A man who’s singular purpose and passion in all that he did was for the Lord.

I don’t think we have an attention span problem. I think we haven’t paid enough attention to our purpose for being in this world—to know God and make Him known. That is our purpose. And we can only find passion in that when we know who He is and who He created us to be. We have to know the story.

I will reiterate; I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who wouldn’t spend ample time focused on what they were passionate about and saw as their purpose. I think the problem is so few of us find our purpose and passion in being who God called us to be. The solution to that is simple: “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised!"

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.