Like many of you, I’ve been saying it for years:
We are more distracted than ever.
And most days, I still believe it.
I’ve felt it myself, scrolling instead of reading, checking my phone when I meant to be present, struggling to sustain focus on the kind of deep work that once came easily. I even poked fun at myself recently in a post about the rare event of finishing a book from start to finish (read that one here). And last year, I wrote about The Anxious Generation (read here), where I shared my own growing unease around technology and attention. That unease felt and still feels very real.
But I recently listened to historian Daniel Immerwahr on ReThinking with Adam Grant (podcast transcript here), and it nudged my thinking in a new direction.
Immerwahr’s voice on the podcast was measured, as he challenged what feels like common sense. In his article, What If the Attention Crisis Is a Distraction?, he doesn’t deny that something has changed. But he questions whether our capacity to pay attention is actually shrinking.
His thesis? What we’re experiencing isn’t so much an attention crisis as an attention transition, a shift in what we pay attention to, not a collapse in our ability to focus.
As I listened, I thought about every school district meeting where we have discussed “student attention spans,” every workshop on “managing digital distractions.” Immerwahr’s historical perspective was both humbling and illuminating. Each generation, he explained, has had its own attention-based moral crisis. Long novels like War and Peace, now seen as the gold standard of deep focus, were once criticized for pulling readers away from “serious” pursuits. Even the in-home piano was considered a threat to literacy. The through-line wasn’t the technology itself, but our recurring anxiety about it.
“The age of distraction,” Immerwahr reminded listeners, “is also the age of obsession.”
That phrase challenges my beliefs. Because if our students are still capable of obsession—if they’re investing hours into Minecraft builds, anime story arcs, K-pop lore, or long-form YouTube video essays, then maybe our job as educators isn’t to fix their attention spans, but to better understand their motivations.
Maybe we need to stop asking, “Why can’t they focus?”
And start asking, “What are they choosing to focus on and why?”
Immerwahr’s framework challenged how I think about what I see in classrooms. When he talked about each era inventing its own “attention villains,” from novels to comic books to television to smartphones, I couldn’t help but reflect on how we have positioned technology in schools. We often treat student distraction as a deficit, something to be minimized or managed. We build rules around device use, worry about TikTok trends and lament that students won’t engage in “deep work.” But what if we are repeating the same historical pattern mistaking change for decline?
This reframe aligns with what many of us observe daily:
A student who zones out during a worksheet lights up during a design challenge.
A teen who “won’t read” a novel devours fan fiction late into the night.
A class that seems scattered in one setting becomes intensely focused in another.
Are these attention issues or attention mismatches?
Immerwahr’s perspective pushes us to think historically and humanely. He urges us to be cautious before declaring crises, reminding us that many past panics now look, in hindsight, a little overblown. That doesn’t mean our concerns aren’t valid. But it does mean we might benefit from approaching them with more perspective—and less panic.
This historical lens matters deeply in K–12 education. Because when we believe attention is disappearing, we tend to narrow learning: shorter tasks, simpler texts, more control. But if we believe attention is evolving, we can instead broaden learning: tap into student interests, create room for choice and voice, and build bridges between traditional and digital literacies.
I’m not suggesting we stop teaching focus. The ability to sustain attention, to read deeply, think critically, and sit with a problem, remains essential. But perhaps our traditional signals of engagement (a quiet room, a student holding a novel) no longer tell the full story. And if we cling too tightly to old definitions, we risk misreading what’s actually happening in classrooms.
So yes, I still worry about distraction.
Yes, I still believe in the power of silence, of getting lost in a book, of unplugged time to think.
But no, I no longer quick to agree we are in free fall.
We are not attention-starved. We’re attention-splintered.
And that’s not a crisis, it’s a challenge.
It invites us as educators, leaders and learners to design learning that earns attention, not demands it. To meet students where they are, and guide them toward where they can go. To remember that our job isn’t just to manage attention but to inspire it.
The image at the top of this post was generated through AI. Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.
