“We cannot say that the ability of teenagers to concentrate has diminished”

2023-10-30 08:49:35

“We have to repeat things to them too many times”, “It is very difficult for them to follow the lesson”, “It is almost impossible for them to pay attention for an hour”… These comments are commonplace when you ask teachers how the classes are going high school, and most of the time the conversation ends with “It’s a lot harder for them to concentrate than they used to.” Although this is a widespread feeling among high school teachers, the neurobiologist and director of the International Science Teaching Foundation, Héctor Ruiz, warns that this is a half-truth. “We cannot say that the ability of teenagers to concentrate has declined, because biologically it is not true,” argues Ruiz, who explains that the ability to pay attention is a cognitive function that is part of the basic structure of the brain and that evolutionarily it cannot have changed. “What has changed is the environment because in a short time many distractions have arisen, and this challenges our attention span, which remains the same.”

However, Ruiz recognizes that this change in society and this increase in stimuli can affect the concentration of adolescents more (and therefore their studies) for two reasons: the increase in distractions coincides with the phase of hypersociability of adolescence and, at the same time, although the brain is already almost formed in terms of the ability to concentrate, it has not yet achieved the learning of self-regulation that adults can have. “Our attentional system evolved so that we were distracted when something around us offered us the promise of information relevant to our purposes and one of these goals is the reputation we have within a group,” explains the neurobiologist. And he adds: “In adolescence, any promise of social information is very attractive and we have the problem that this information is ephemeral and expires quickly. If you are the last to know it no longer makes sense and with mobile phones the time expiration has been drastically reduced.”

Faced with this scenario, we might think that banning cell phones in the classroom would be a solution, but the problem goes a little further. “We’ve gotten used to it being there and even when we don’t have it we can have the tendency to look for a stimulus similar to what it provides us when we use it,” says Ruiz. Another factor comes into play here too, the boredom threshold has dropped, because our brain knows that “there will always be more relevant or engaging information than what we are hearing at the moment”. A tendency that students like Ibra, who is in the 3rd year of ESO, recognize that it happens to them when they watch a series or even when they play video games and, obviously, also in the classroom. “Depending on the moment, it’s more or less difficult for me, and also depending on which classmate I have next to me,” explains the student, who explains how one of the techniques he uses to not get distracted is to do origami while listening to the teacher’s lesson.

The neurobiologist, however, breaks a spear in favor of adolescent students: “When they are dedicating themselves to something that interests them, they have exactly the same attention span as any adult.” It is in this “what interests them” that it is difficult to find uniformity. An example is that of Yousra and Kiara, who are in 2nd and 3rd year of ESO at a high school in Barcelona: “If a subject is easy, I get distracted very quickly; on the other hand, the subjects that are difficult for me make me more concentrated because since I don’t know them, they seem more interesting to me,” says the first. On the contrary, Kiara is more drastic: “If I like the subject I concentrate, but if I don’t it takes a lot to get down to it”.

Music for studying, yes or no?

Beyond what happens in the classroom, one of the consequences of students’ concentration problems is that they have to take more work home with them and they have to review more of what they were told in high school. All the students who spoke to the ARA agree that the only way to concentrate is by turning off the mobile phone or leaving it in another room, but they also have other techniques to concentrate when studying such as listening to music or dialing they put specific rules such as not getting up until they finish a subject or until the time limit that they have marked arrives. Regarding what the ideal environment might be, Ruiz is clear: “One where we have no external stimulus. However, this scenario is almost impossible because our brain is prepared to react to any stimulus, both visual and auditory.” Having said that, the neurobiologist advises to look for quiet spaces and avoid any “non-essential sensory stimulation”. As for whether or not studying with music is good for concentration, Ruiz’s conclusion isn’t black or white. “The ideal is to study without music, but if music is an alternative to the noise at home it can be a good option,” he says. And he adds: “It’s also true that, even though it’s not a good technique, if you take it out of a student who’s always focused on music, their brain will probably get distracted thinking where is the music they’re used to “.

In this sense, the neurobiologist recommends that, in the event that music is studied, it should be done with songs without lyrics. “It will be easier to ignore it and in the end that’s what concentration is all about, to ignore the vast majority of stimuli around you to stay only with those that are useful to you.”