Declining Attention Spans and Content Compression: A Decade of Digital Deflation

American attention span has declined from 150 seconds (2004) to 47 seconds (2023), a 5-6% annual decline. This mirrors a consistent compression across the web, with blog dwell times dropping from 47 to 33 seconds and word counts declining 40% over the past decade. Content creators are adapting by producing shorter-form content that delivers faster dopamine hits.