Attention span test: a 60-second focus check

React when the circle turns green. Hold back when it turns red. About a minute, 32 rounds. This measures sustained attention and impulse control right now, not a fixed trait, and it isn't a diagnosis.

React when the circle turns green. Do nothing when it turns red. 32 rounds, about a minute. Works with a click/tap or the spacebar.

How it's scored

Green circles are "go" signals (26 of 32 rounds); red circles are "no-go" signals (6 of 32) you should ignore. Your score is the share of all 32 rounds you got right — reacting to green, holding back on red — out of 100. The breakdown separates two different failures: missed greens (attention drifted, you didn't react in time) and clicked reds (impulse control slipped, you reacted before checking). Average reaction time is shown for context; it isn't part of the score, since reacting fast and reacting correctly are different skills.

Why go/no-go

This is a simplified version of the go/no-go task, a format attention researchers have used for decades under names like the Continuous Performance Test: a frequent signal trains a quick, automatic response, and a rare signal checks whether you can override it. It's a reasonable proxy for the two things an endless feed exploits — sustained attention (did you stay switched on through round 30) and impulse control (did you catch yourself before tapping). It is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument.

What the research says about attention and feeds

The oft-repeated claim that human attention spans have shrunk to "8 seconds, shorter than a goldfish" is not a real finding — it traces to a 2015 marketing report that misattributed the number, and no such study exists. What is backed by actual research: Gloria Mark's group at UC Irvine, which has tracked how people actually use their screens since the early 2000s, found the average time spent on one screen before switching to another dropped from about two and a half minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 seconds by 2016. That's a measured change in behaviour around notifications, multitasking and app design, not evidence that attention itself has shrunk as a biological trait.

Endless feeds are built around exactly this: no natural stopping point, and a notification or an autoplaying next item ready the instant attention starts to wander. See what is doomscrolling, and why is it so hard to stop for how that mechanism works.

What actually helps

Remove the endless feeds, keep the app. Stillfeed is a free iPhone browser for Instagram and YouTube that removes Reels, Shorts and Explore before they load, so there's no feed training the reflex this test checks for.
Turn off non-message notifications. They recreate the same "something new, check now" pull from outside the app.
Single-task on purpose. Mark's own research found task-switching, not any one app, is what fragments attention through the day.

See 10 strategies to stop doomscrolling for step-by-step iPhone settings, or try the phone addiction test for a broader check on your habits.

Sources

Gloria Mark (UC Irvine), reporting on her group's longitudinal screen-attention research, summarized in Why a Digital Detox Won't Reset Your Attention Span (TED, interview transcript) and widely reported CNN Health coverage of the same findings.
The go/no-go and Continuous Performance Test paradigms are a standard attention-research format; this page implements a simplified, non-clinical version for illustration only.

Common questions

What does this test actually measure?

It's a simplified go/no-go task, a format researchers use to study sustained attention and impulse control: you react to a frequent signal (green) and withhold on a rare one (red). It measures how you did on this specific minute, not a fixed trait, and it isn't a validated clinical attention test.

What's a good score?

Most people land in the middle two bands. A lower score usually means either missed greens (attention drifted) or clicked reds (impulse control slipped), and the result breakdown tells you which. Your own score over time, taken under similar conditions, is more useful than comparing to anyone else's.

Is this the same as the Microsoft '8-second attention span' claim?

No, and that statistic isn't real — it's a long-debunked claim that was never backed by the research it was attributed to. What's genuinely measured: in tracked computer use, the average time people spent on one screen before switching to another dropped from about 2.5 minutes in the early 2000s to about 47 seconds by 2016 (Gloria Mark, UC Irvine). That's a change in behaviour around notifications and multitasking, not a shrinking biological attention span.

Is my result stored anywhere?

No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere. Refreshing the page starts a new attempt; there's nothing to share by link since every run generates new rounds.

What actually helps attention day to day?

Removing the things built to interrupt it. An endless feed is designed to remove the natural stopping point where you'd otherwise look up; notifications do the same from outside the app. Stillfeed removes Reels, Shorts and Explore from Instagram and YouTube on iPhone, free from your first launch.