加州大学欧文分校信息学冠名教授格洛丽亚·马克二十年来持续追踪人们在屏幕上的注意力持续时间。她的研究表明：注意力分散现象并非与屏幕本身普遍相关，而是与特定设计模式挂钩：通知系统、不定时的奖励机制、无限滚动浏览。这些是由企业出于特定经济目的而设计的机制，而非媒介与生俱来的属性。屏幕天生并不具有破坏注意力的特性，而是因为主流平台为服务广告收入，将其刻意设计成为转移注意力的工具。
这种机制导致的无法集中，有时会让人误以为是自己的问题；但实际并非如此
Others are drowning, attempting sustained thought in environments engineered to prevent it. They sit with laptops open, seven tabs competing for attention, notifications sliding in from three different apps, phones vibrating every few minutes. They’re trying to read serious material while fighting a losing battle against behavioural psychology weaponised at scale. They believe their inability to focus is a personal failure rather than a design problem. They don’t realise they’re trying to think in a space optimised to prevent thinking. What we think is a decline in literacy is a design problem Aeon Essays
那些分散注意力的屏幕，同样也能支持专注；那些攫取人类注意力的技术，同样也能滋养它。关键在于：由谁设计、为何设计，以及在何种约束下设计。
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