Gloria Mark
Chancellor's Professor Informatics | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
Gloria Mark's research area is human-computer interaction (HCI) studying how technology has impacted individuals, groups, and society.
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Biography
Gloria Mark is Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology. She has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. Her primary research interest is in understanding the impact of digital media on people's lives and she is best known for her work in studying people's multitasking, mood and behavior while using digital media in real world environments. She has published over 150 papers in the top journals and conferences in the fields of human-computer interactions (HCI) and Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and is author of the book Multitasking in the Digital Age. She was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2017 in recognition for her contribution in HCI. She has been a Fulbright scholar and has received an NSF Career grant. Her work has been recognized outside of academia: she has been invited to present her work at SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival and her work on multitasking has appeared in the popular media, e.g. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic, the BBC, and many others. She was general co-chair of the ACM CHI 2017 conference, was papers chair of ACM CSCW 2012 and ACM CSCW 2006, and currently serves as Associate Editor of the ACM TOCHI and Human-Computer Interaction journals.
Areas of Expertise (4)
Information Technology
Email Interruptions
Human-Computer Interaction
Multi-Tasking
Accomplishments (3)
ACM CHI Academy (professional)
2017
Google Research Award (professional)
2014
IBM Faculty Award (professional)
2013
Education (2)
Columbia University: PhD, Psychology 1991
The University of Michigan: MS, Biostatistics 1984
Affiliations (3)
- Assoc. for Computing Machinery (ACM) : Member
- ACM SIGCHI
- Fulbright Association
Links (3)
Media Appearances (36)
The Beauty of a Silent Walk
The New York Times online
2023-09-23
We now spend an average of about 47 seconds on a piece of screen content before switching to another piece of content, according to research led by Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus] of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Attention Span.” Continually flipping our attention from one task to another is draining, Dr. Mark said. But a silent walk can help replenish our “tank” so that we have a greater reserve of mental energy, she added. In other words, disconnecting for a while can actually help us perform better.
The many states of the brain: What’s going on inside your head and how to optimize it
CNN online
2023-09-14
The first episode of the season, which dropped today, is about the Attentive Brain. It delves into where attention comes from, how it gets hijacked and how to put it back on track. Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus] of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity,” told me how much our attention span had dropped over the course of 20 years: from 2½ minutes in 2003 to 47 seconds today. Just hearing that left a big impression on me — and I bet it will on you, too. But worse than those alarming numbers are the consequences, both in the real world and to our bodies.
The Distracted Brain
CNN online
2023-09-12
Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks to Gloria Mark, [emeritus] professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.” She’ll tell us what’s actually going on in the brain when we’re attentive and why we’re less focused than we used to be. Professor Mark will also share tips for sharpening our attention spans that go beyond “just put down your phone.”
These Fragrances Promise To Improve Your Concentration
Women’s Health online
2023-09-04
Even the experts who study concentration suggest our ability to focus is on the decline, at least from anecdotal evidence: “I’ve heard from so many people who say they have trouble in this area,” says Gloria Mark, PhD, author of the new book Attention Span and a professor [emeritus of informatics] at the University of California, Irvine who studies digital behavior and distraction. Her research found that the average person’s ability to concentrate on a single onscreen task has shrunk by more than a minute.
Distracted Employees Cost More Than Sick Ones
Psychology Today online
2023-08-26
Research suggests that knowledge workers lose 2-3 hours per workday to distractions ….. Gloria Mark [professor emeritus of informatics] and her colleagues at the University of California-Irvine found that the more time employees spent on email, the less productive and the more stressed they felt.
Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter
The Verge online
2023-08-25
Gloria Mark, professor [emeritus] of information science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Attention Span,” started researching the way people used computers in 2004. The average time people spent on a single screen was 2.5 minutes. … Now it’s down to about 47. This is an acid bath for human cognition. Multitasking is mostly a myth. We can focus on one thing at a time.
Loftie “Magic Storymaker” - A Groundbreaking AI-Powered Personalized Bedtime Story Experience
Forbes online
2023-08-20
Gloria Mark, PhD, [professor emeritus of informatics] of the University of California, Irvine, frequently talks about how the internet and digital devices have affected our ability to focus, why multitasking is so stressful, and how understanding the science of attention can help us to regain our focus when we need it. See her recent book, Attention Span.
How AI Can Make You a Video Star (at Least With Your Clients)
MSN online
2023-08-17
Let’s take a closer look at these types of AI tools and how you can use them for your own client marketing campaigns. Why video? The average attention span for someone using a screen is about 47 seconds, according to research from Gloria Mark, [professor emeritus of informatics] at the University of California, Irvine.
This Was Supposed to be the Antidote for TikTok Brain. It’s Just as Bad.
The Wall Street Journal online
2023-08-12
“When kids spend a lot of time watching short videos, they expect to continually be stimulated by fast changes in content,” says Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus] of informatics at University of California, Irvine. Regular viewing of fast-paced videos can make everything else seem boring and cause problems with focusing on slow-paced activities such as schoolwork and reading, says Mark, who wrote a book about attention spans, published earlier this year.
Why Everyone's Worried About Their Attention Span—and How to Improve Yours
TIME online
2023-08-10
Screens present a unique minefield of distractibility, with their constant flow of notifications and information—and that’s by design, says Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. … “It’s not just the fact that there’s algorithms catching our attention,” Mark says. “We have this sense that we have to respond, we have to check.”
Editor’s Note for August Health & Wellness Issue
Orange Coast online
2023-08-03
As we talked to wellness experts this month, there was a common theme that arose time and again: stress and the negative effects it has on our health. Being constantly connected can cause anxiety for many of us. So I was intrigued to learn about the new book “Attention Span: A groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness, and creativity” by Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus] of informatics at UC Irvine. Mark shared her research and her advice for helping us detach.
Opinion: Why Do People Cling to False Narratives? Here’s What Psychology Says
The Messenger online
2023-07-25
Gloria Mark, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, writes: "“Former President Donald Trump is currently indicted in two criminal cases, with two more potential indictments looming. Never before in U.S. history has a president or former president been indicted. But despite the mounting criminal charges and evidence, why do so many Americans still support Trump, according to recent polling? The answer lies deeply rooted in our psychological natures. … A long history of psychological research has shown that making disconfirming evidence available is not enough to change people’s convictions but rather provokes an opposite reaction, prompting them to double down on their beliefs."
Need to Quit Procrastinating? Hire a ‘Body Double’
The Wall Street Journal online
2023-07-12
“The presence of others, whether electronic or face-to-face, creates an arousal in people which can enable them to perform better,” said Gloria Mark, a professor [emeritus] of informatics at the University of California, Irvine and author of a new book about attention spans. It’s one reason why people find it easier to go to the gym than work out alone, she added.
3 Ways to Avoid Digital Distraction
Inc. online
2023-06-15
Attention spans have been plummeting for the last 20 years. In 2004, most people could focus for 2.5 minutes before switching tasks; today, the number is closer to 50 seconds, according to Dr. Gloria Mark, a [Chancellor’s] professor at the University of California, Irvine and author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. … As Dr. Mark wrote, "We still own our attention, and rather than simply submit to its further attenuation, we can take change into our own hands. Human beings created the internet, and it's up to us, in the end, to decide how much we want to be absorbed by it."
Opinion: Beyond the ‘Matrix’ Theory of the Mind
The New York Times online
2023-05-28
Gloria Mark, a [Chancellor’s] professor of information science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Attention Span,” started researching the way people used computers in 2004. … “We can produce more information,” Mark said. “But that means there’s more information for us to process. Our processing capability is the bottleneck.” … “Nobody likes to write reports or do emails, but we want to stay in touch with information,” Mark said. “We learn when we deeply process information. If we’re removed from that and we’re delegating everything to GPT — having it summarize and write reports for us — we’re not connecting to that information.”
Does looking at screens reduce our brain function?
KCBS Radio radio
2023-05-21
With humans spending more time in front of screens than ever before in the history of the world, some are beginning to wonder if the advancement in technology is having an impact on our cognitive function. Among those raising the alarm is Dr. Gloria Mark, the author of the recently published “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.” Mark, a [Chancellor’s] Professor at the University of California, Irvine, spoke with KCBS Radio about her book and what she found delving into the impacts screens have on us.
Companies Are Finally Designing Offices for the New Work Reality
Time online
2023-05-22
Even before the pandemic, many companies accepted that the office was broken. The open floor-plan offices that seemed like such a good idea a few years ago had become noisy places where workers were having trouble focusing. In 2019, people spent an average of 47 seconds on a given screen before switching to another, down from 2.5 minutes in 2004, according to research from Gloria Mark, an informatics [Chancellor’s] Professor at the University of California, Irvine. Some companies were even moving to four-day work weeks to try and give employees more focus time.
The Good Men Project, May 16, 2023 The Importance of Concentration for Your Mental Health
The Good Men Project online
2023-05-16
Try this experiment on yourself: Write out an experience you had today, and while you’re in the middle of a sentence, pick up your smartphone and scroll through your social media feed for one minute, then resume your writing. How much time did you spend trying to re-focus on your original task? This duration represents the cognitive cost of the interruption, but research by psychologist Dr Gloria Mark, [Chancellor’s Professor of informatics] of the University of California, Irvine has found that there are also psychological costs.
Multitasking Is the Enemy of Academic Productivity
The Chronicle of Higher Education online
2023-05-04
Gloria Mark, UCI Chancellor’s Professor of informatics writes, “Tenure requires excellence in research, teaching, and service …. Faculty members tend to shift attention throughout the day to meet the demands of all three criteria. … The academic dream, for many of us, was to focus on research and engage in rich discussions with students. But pressure to excel in the competing demands of the triple constraint means that you risk not doing any of them well. By accepting that multitasking is a dead end, and finding ways to work monochronically, you may be able to rediscover what drew you to this profession in the first place.”
It’s Private: Innovative Techniques Begin to Address Clinicians’ Mental Health
Healthcare IT Today online
2023-05-02
The human brain is not designed to withstand the stimulation and endless distractions of modern, technology-laden lifestyles. The average focus time has been reduced and attention spans are shrinking according to a recent article by CNN. The article cites Dr. Gloria Mark, a [Chancellor’s] Professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. In her comments Dr. Mark notes that “decades of research have tracked the decline of the ability to focus”. Our smartphones are often the culprit.
Learning to Focus Without Medication
The Wall Street Journal online
2023-04-27
Learning to protect your attention is important even if you don’t meet the criteria for ADHD. It’s easy for anyone to feel distracted when you have windows and messages popping up on your screen or phone all day long. Frequently cited research led by Dr. Gloria Mark, a [Chancellor’s] Professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, found that on average, people now spend just three minutes on a task before being interrupted or switching tasks—and it takes roughly 23 minutes to return to the original task.
#1152 Our Shrinking Attention Span - Dr. Gloria Mark
The You Project with Craig Harper online
2023-04-26
According to Dr. Gloria Mark, we spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention and it takes 25 minutes to bring that attention back to a task after an interruption. And that we interrupt ourselves more than we're interrupted by others. … Technology is not bad (of course) but we need to learn how to co-exist with it in a healthy and sustainable way. Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology and studies the impact of digital media on people’s lives.
TikTok users are demanding that their favorite musicians release sped-up songs
NBC News online
2023-04-22
Sped-up songs are also a part of a larger trend of people speeding up media to fit in as much content as possible into a shorter amount of time, including podcasts and YouTube videos, said Gloria Mark, Chancellor’s Professor at University of California, Irvine who has studied attention spans for over 20 years. Now that several platforms have the option for users to speed up their media, there is a new mentality of having more personal autonomy to adjust media to the speed of their liking, Mark said.
Regain Control of Your Focus and Attention with Researcher Gloria Mark
Microsoft online
2023-04-06
Our attention spans are getting shorter—much shorter—and Gloria Mark has the data to back it up. Mark, a [Chancellor’s] Professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and a visiting researcher at Microsoft since 2012, is the author of the new book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. An expert on distraction and multitasking, Mark joined Microsoft’s WorkLab podcast to share research-backed tips on how to regain control of your attention and help your teams do the same. And she also offers a glimpse at how AI might help with work wellbeing too ….
Opinion: Will TikTok be banned? Maybe it should be for kids, at least.
USA Today online
2023-03-30
“We have a part of the brain called the executive function that’s responsible for self-regulation. For kids, it’s not fully mature, and yet they’re exposed to (social media) before their executive function mind (can help them manage it),” Gloria Mark, [Chancellor’s] professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and author of “Attention Span,” tells me over the phone. “A lot of adults have trouble with that as well,” she adds. … “One of the biggest things parents can do is limit screen time and be better role models themselves,” Mark said. “Get off screens and pay attention to your child so that they don’t learn that it’s normal to have a phone between you and another person.”
A psychology expert shares the 3 things she always does to boost her brain energy
CNBC online
2023-03-23
Gloria Mark, UCI Chancellor’s Professor of informatics writes, “Our attention span averages just 47 seconds on a screen — and it is shrinking. As a psychologist and tech behavior researcher, I’ve watched (and empirically tracked) our brain’s pattern of attention-switching, and with it, the stress and exhaustion buildup. Putting deadlines on your calendar and writing to-do lists doesn’t work anymore. Here’s how I plan my day to boost focus, feel happier and get more done: ….”
How Boredom Can Breed Brilliance: The Case for Being Bored
Esquire online
2023-03-23
Our attention spans are as short as [they have] ever been and that can't be a good thing now, can it? “In 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be two-and-a-half minutes,” Dr. Gloria Mark, a [Chancellor’s] professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine who studies the effects of digital media, said in an interview with CNN." “Some years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.”
419. Extend Your Attention Span with Gloria Mark
Future Squared with Steve Glaveski online
2023-03-16
Gloria Mark is a Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She’s been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012 and is a recipient of the Google Research Award and the NSF Career award. She’s the author of the new book, Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, which unpacks how our brains operate in the digital world, why we can’t focus, and how we can take back control to find more success in our careers but also more health and wellness in our lives. We unpacked myriad topics, including: The anatomy of attention The forces of distraction … And so much more.
Can't Concentrate? Here's How to Focus in the Digital Age
Columbia Magazine online
2023-03-15
In her new book, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, UC Irvine informatics [Chancellor’s] Professor Gloria Mark … shares two decades of research on how technology has affected our ability to focus at work and at home — and how we can start to get that skill back.
Our Attention Spans Are Declining, and Technology Is Not Solely To Blame
Newsweek online
2023-03-13
Gloria Mark, [is] a [Chancellor’s] professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Mark's investigations explore the impact digital media is having on our lives. Her research has found evidence that attention spans appear to be declining. This theme and how we can reclaim our focus are discussed in Mark's new book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, which draws on her years of research. … Mark said there are a number of factors that may be playing a role in our increasing distractibility, and our psychology is just as important a factor as technology.
If Your Attention Span Is Burnt Out, a Leading Scientist’s Simple Fix Will Come as Relief
The Healthy online
2023-02-16
Dr. Gloria Mark, psychologist and the Chancellor’s Professor of informatics at University of California, Irvine, specializes in research on distraction and multitasking. … According to Dr. Mark, it’s that we’re not just distracted because of our devices—we’re distracting and interrupting ourselves. … Dr. Mark has created a few simple exercises you can do to “gain better control of your attention and to experience more positive well-being when you use your devices.”
Your attention span is shrinking, studies say. Here’s how to stay focused
CNN online
2023-01-11
Gloria Mark, a Chancellor’s Professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, studies how digital media impacts our lives. In her new book, “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity,” Mark explained how decades of research has tracked the decline of the ability to focus. … “There’s no way that a person can just completely cut off from technology and work in today’s world,” Mark said. “So let’s learn how to live with it in a way that maintains our positive well-being.”
How to Focus Like It’s 1990
The New York Times online
2023-01-09
In 2004, Gloria Mark, a Chancellor’s]Professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, watched knowledge workers go about a typical day at the office. Using a stopwatch, she noted every time they switched tasks on their computer, moving from a spreadsheet to an email to a web page to a different web page and back to the spreadsheet. She found that people averaged just two and a half minutes on a given task before switching. When Dr. Mark repeated the experiment in 2012, the average time office workers spent on a task had dropped to 75 seconds. And it has continued to drop from there.
How to Restore Our Dwindling Attention Spans
The Wall Street Journal online
2023-01-06
Gloria Mark, UCI Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Informatics writes, “Our online behavior is greatly influenced by the wider culture and the ever more sophisticated tools of digital technology, but we can’t just blame our short attention spans on algorithms and notifications. We still own our attention, and rather than simply submit to its further attenuation, we can take change into our own hands. Human beings created the internet, and it’s up to us, in the end, to decide how much we want to be absorbed by it.”
What Is A ‘Triple Peak’ Workday? Post-Pandemic Work Trends Emerge
International Business Times online
2022-05-30
“People are taking on additional day duties that they didn’t have before, whether it’s caring for kids and helping with schooling or being a caretaker to another family member,” said Gloria Mark, professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and a visiting researcher at Microsoft.
The 9-to-5 workday is over
Computerworld online
2022-04-26
But, as Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and a visiting researcher at Microsoft, observed, "More than ever, people are taking on additional day duties that they didn't have before, whether it's caring for kids and helping with schooling or being a caretaker to another family member.… [This is] pushing a lot of people to work later."
Articles (5)
Characterizing Exploratory Behaviors on a Personal Visualization Interface Using Interaction Logs
OSF PreprintsPoorna TalkadSukumar, Gonzalo J Martinez, Ted Grover, Gloria Mark, Sidney D'Mello, Nitesh V Chawla, Stephen M Mattingly, Aaron D Striegel
2020 Personal visualizations present a separate class of visualizations where users interact with their own data to draw inferences about themselves. In this paper, we study how a realistic understanding of personal visualizations can be gained from analyzing user interactions. We designed an interface presenting visualizations of the personal data gathered in a prior study and logged interactions from 369 participants as they each explored their own data.
A Multisensor Person-Centered Approach to Understand the Role of Daily Activities in Job Performance with Organizational Personas
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous TechnologiesVedant Das Swain, Koustuv Saha, Hemang Rajvanshy, Anusha Sirigiri, Julie M Gregg, Suwen Lin, Gonzalo J Martinez, Stephen M Mattingly, Shayan Mirjafari, Raghu Mulukutla, Subigya Nepal, Kari Nies, Manikanta D Reddy, Pablo Robles-Granda, Andrew T Campbell, Nitesh V Chawla, Sidney D'Mello, Anind K Dey, Kaifeng Jiang, Qiang Liu, Gloria Mark, Edward Moskal, Aaron Striegel, Louis Tay, Gregory D Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
2019 Several psychologists posit that performance is not only a function of personality but also of situational contexts, such as day-level activities. Yet in practice, since only personality assessments are used to infer job performance, they provide a limited perspective by ignoring activity. However, multi-modal sensing has the potential to characterize these daily activities. This paper illustrates how empirically measured activity data complements traditional effects of personality to explain a worker's performance.
Stress and productivity patterns of interrupted, synergistic, and antagonistic office activities
Scientific DataShaila Zaman, Amanveer Wesley, Dennis Rodrigo Da Cunha Silva, Pradeep Buddharaju, Fatema Akbar, Ge Gao, Gloria Mark, Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna & Ioannis Pavlidis
2019 We describe a controlled experiment, aiming to study productivity and stress effects of email interruptions and activity interactions in the modern office. The measurement set includes multimodal data for n = 63 knowledge workers who volunteered for this experiment and were randomly assigned into four groups: (G1/G2) Batch email interruptions with/without exogenous stress.
The Perpetual Work Life of Crowdworkers: How Tooling Practices Increase Fragmentation in Crowdwork
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer InteractionAlex C Williams, Gloria Mark, Kristy Milland, Edward Lank, Edith Law
2019 Crowdworkers regularly support their work with scripts, extensions, and software to enhance their productivity. Despite their evident significance, little is understood regarding how these tools affect crowdworkers' quality of life and work. In this study, we report findings from an interview study (N=21) aimed at exploring the tooling practices used by full-time crowdworkers on Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Understanding smartphone usage in college classrooms: A long-term measurement study
Computers & EducationInyeop Kim, Rihun Kim, Heepyung Kim, Duyeon Kim, Kyungsik Han, Paul H Lee, Gloria Mark, Uichin Lee
2019 Smartphone usage is widespread in college classrooms, but there is a lack of measurement studies. We conducted a 14-week measurement study in the wild with 84 first-year college students in Korea. We developed a data collection and processing tool for usage logging, mobility tracking, class evaluation, and class attendance detection. Using this dataset, we quantify students' smartphone usage patterns in the classrooms, ranging from simple use duration and frequency to temporal rhythms and interaction patterns.
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