“Pay Attention, Kid! Has the use of digital technology impaired students’ ability to focus?” (Education Next, Summer 2025), 

Summary for Educators 

Source: Willingham, Daniel T. “Pay Attention, Kid! Has the use of digital technology impaired students’ ability to focus?” Education Next, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Summer 2025). https://www.educationnext.org/pay-attention-kid-has-digital-technol...

The Question

There’s growing concern among teachers, parents, and policymakers that digital devices (such as phones and social media) are undermining students’ ability to sustain attention. Schools are increasingly banning or regulating cell phones; teachers report that reading stamina has declined since 2019, with many attributing this to the impact of technology on short attention spans. But is there strong evidence that technology has impaired attention capacity—or is something else going on? Willingham explores this in “Pay Attention, Kid!” 

What the Research Shows

1. Correlational Findings

   • Studies often find modest negative correlations between screen/digital activity and attentional regulation in both young children (pre-K, early elementary) and older students. Children who use screens more tend to show somewhat weaker attention regulation. 

   • But correlation doesn’t imply causation—students who struggle with attention might gravitate toward digital distractions. 

2. Longitudinal Studies

   • A few studies follow children over time. These suggest that greater screen time at an earlier age sometimes predicts somewhat worse attention later. However, the effect sizes are small and often confounded by other factors (home environment, parenting, socioeconomic status, etc.) 

   • Conversely, attention difficulties also tend to predict more screen time later, complicating directionality.

3. Cross-generational / test-score comparisons

   • Standardized measures of attention (e.g., the “d2 Test of Attention” among others) over decades don’t show large declines. For example, children’s performance from 1990 to 2021 on certain tasks has been fairly stable. For adults, some small improvements have been observed. 

   • Some working memory backward recall tasks show small downward trends, but these are modest (effect sizes d = –0.06 to –0.17) and again, not proof of a causal effect of technology. 

Alternative Explanations Willingham Offers

Since the evidence for a major loss of attention capacity is weak, Willingham suggests two alternative hypotheses to explain what teachers observe:

1. Delay Discounting / Reward Timing

   • The repeated availability of immediate rewards via digital devices may be training students to favor what’s gratifying now over what pays off in the future. Put simply, when screen-based rewards are easy and immediate, students become less willing to endure longer stretches of “boring” or less immediately rewarding schoolwork. 

2. Boredom Thresholds & Comparison

   • Students may compare less interesting class tasks with the highly engaging content on their phones. When digital content is constantly available, even mildly engaging tasks may seem “boring” by comparison, leading students to disengage sooner. 

These ideas suggest that students might choose not to pay attention rather than be incapable of doing so. Attention may be intact, but willingness or motivation to sustain it may be lower in certain conditions. 

What We Still Don’t Know

• Causal role of screen time: While there are longitudinal studies, many confounding variables remain.

• How much context matters: What the student is doing on digital devices (educational vs non-educational), how engaged or guided their use is, and whether parental or teacher mediation occurs.

• Variation by age, developmental stage, and individual differences. Some students may be more vulnerable than others.

• How school policies (phone bans, structured digital breaks, etc.) might shift student norms over time.

Implications for Educators & Policy

• Focus on structuring environments: Clear digital device policies in class (e.g., bell-to-bell bans) may help by making school a context where phones are less tempting. Consistency matters. 

• Make long-term rewards salient: Help students see progress and long-term gains (portfolios, cumulative assessments, reflections) so the future benefits of sustained attention are more visible.

• Design engaging tasks: If students are choosing distraction, ensure that classroom tasks are engaging, appropriately challenging, and meaningful. Tasks that are dull or disconnected from students’ interests lose out when compared to digital entertainment.

• Teach metacognitive awareness: Help students understand when they are being distracted, and why they might lose focus, and strategies for resisting distraction.

• Gather data and evaluate: When enacting phone bans or other interventions, collect evidence: do students’ reading stamina, focus, behavior, or academic outcomes change?

Key Takeaway

Daniel Willingham concludes that although digital devices are distractors, the evidence that they have permanently impaired students’ capacity for attention is weak. What seems more likely is that because digital devices offer constant, immediate rewards, students are choosing to divide their attention or disengage more readily when school tasks feel less immediately rewarding. That suggests that attention deficits might be learnable and addressable, rather than permanent or unchangeable. For educators, the path forward involves policy, pedagogy, and making visible the value of sustained learning.

Original Article

Source: Willingham, Daniel T. “Pay Attention, Kid! Has the use of digital technology impaired students’ ability to focus?” Education Next, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Summer 2025). https://www.educationnext.org/pay-attention-kid-has-digital-technol...

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Prepared with the assistance of AI software

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (4) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com