Professor Gloria Mark knows all about distraction. In 2015, working with her team at the Department of Informatics, based in the Uni of California, Mark studied how often our focus is compromised. Subjects were observed over three dozen offices, their working days vulnerable to phones or colleagues, emails or rival chores.

The study was a sequel to Mark’s matching study in 2000, where the average attention span had been 12 seconds. This time round? Try eight seconds, roughly the duration of a goldfish, minus the benefit of a sunken castle.

Read the full story at The Sydney Morning Herald.