microsoft attention spans research report

Regain Control of Your Focus and Attention with Researcher Gloria Mark

The author and professor offers science-based tips for work wellbeing—and a glimpse at how AI might help

WorkLab Guest Gloria Mark

April 6, 2023

Our attention spans are getting shorter—much shorter—and Gloria Mark has the data to back it up. When she began researching the topic in 2004, people spent an average of two and a half minutes on any given screen before switching to another. In today’s era of multitasking, scrolling, and rabbit holes, we’re down to a mere 47 seconds. 

Mark, a 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—perhaps in the future, AI will sense when our mental resources are dwindling and suggest the right kind of break to restore our balance. 

What can people do now to overcome distraction? Mark has three research-based tips:

Get curious: Embrace what Mark calls “meta-awareness.” It “means being aware of what you’re doing as it’s unfolding,” she says. “We might switch screens to look at social media, and that’s an automatic action. I see my phone and I might grab it. That’s automatic. If we can raise them to our conscious awareness, then we can be intentional in our behaviors.” Once you’re aware, you can probe why exactly you’re checking social media for the third time in 15 minutes. You might just need a break.  

Picture your future self: Mark encourages people to practice forethought, or imagining how your current action is going to help your future self. Say you have the urge to check the news at work, but you know that once you start scrolling it’s hard to stop. Visualize how your decision will affect you later on that evening. “Am I going to be relaxing on the couch feeling fulfilled because I completed what I planned to?” Mark asks. “Or am I going to still be working on that overdue report?” 

Design your day: Plan to do the work that requires the most thought and creativity at the time of day when you’re at your best. And don’t forget breaks. Mark mentions a Japanese expression, yohaku no bi , which refers to the beauty of empty space. “We should try to design empty space into our day,” she says. “It’s time when you can pull back from work, time for contemplation, meditation. It’s time when you can take a walk. It’s time for you to replenish your mental resources.”

WorkLab is a place for experts to share their insights and opinions. As students of the future of work, Microsoft values inputs from a diverse set of voices. That said, the opinions and findings of the experts we interview are their own and do not reflect Microsoft’s own research or opinions. 

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Here’s a transcript of the episode 2 conversation.

ELISE HU: This is WorkLab , the podcast from Microsoft. I’m your host, Elise Hu. On WorkLab , I hear from leading thinkers on the future of work. Economists, designers, psychologists, technologists all share surprising data and explore the trends transforming the way we work. 

GLORIA MARK: The digital age puts us in contact with information faster than we’ve ever experienced before. Every year there are more sources of distraction for us. There’s all kinds of new sites, we have basic human curiosity, we have the world at our fingertips.

ELISE HU: That was Gloria Mark. She has spent decades researching how technology affects our ability to focus. She’s a professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, a visiting researcher at Microsoft since 2012, and she has a thought-provoking and helpful new book, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity . How can you regain control of your focus in an era of scrolling and social media? How can you work more effectively to make time for life and help your teams do the same? Gloria has tips and some insights on how AI might help us out too. All right, here’s my conversation with Gloria.

ELISE HU: Gloria, thanks for coming on the show. 

GLORIA MARK: Oh, it’s my pleasure. 

ELISE HU: It sounds like even though you study how people interact with this kind of technology, you yourself aren’t immune to the same traps that the rest of us fall into. In fact, in your book, you told a pretty funny story about wandering around, I think, a European village in Austria desperately looking for a hotspot.

GLORIA MARK: Yes. Every year, we would visit my husband’s mother who lived in a small Austrian village. And she didn’t have internet. And the closest internet cafe was like a 20- or 30-minute drive. So I used to walk around the neighborhood, holding my laptop looking for bars to appear to get a Wi-Fi signal.

ELISE HU: Let’s get into the research. What have you found since that time—I know your story took place more than a decade ago now—so what have you found about how attention spans have changed over the years? 

GLORIA MARK: Yeah, so we first started tracking attention spans back in 2004. And this was, you know, not too long after I became really interested to study this phenomenon and wanted to find out, to what extent is it widespread that people have a hard time keeping their attention on any application or screen, and at the time, we found the average attention span to be two and a half minutes on average. And this was done with people in a workplace. So it was people with various job roles—both men and women, people of different ages—and in 2012, we discovered using computer logging techniques that attention spans averaged about 75 seconds. And then in the last five or six years, we found attention to average 47 seconds. 

ELISE HU: What did you make of these results?

GLORIA MARK: I was astonished. Even back in 2004, with two and a half minutes, this was far shorter than I had expected. I thought it would be about 10 minutes or so. But you know, as I think about it over the years, we do spend very short amounts of time, say when we go to email, or even if we go on social media, we tend to spend short snippets of time on these different sites. And it’s also reflected when we’re trying to do work. You know, if you have a Word doc open, you’re trying to work on it. We also tend to keep switching our attention away from that. 

ELISE HU: Is it a problem that our attention spans have dwindled to such mere, you know, fractions of minutes? 

GLORIA MARK: Yeah, it’s a problem for three reasons. So first of all, we know from decades of laboratory studies that people make more errors when they switch their attention. There are studies done with people in offline environments. People in the medical profession, doctors and nurses make more errors when their attention is shifting—pilots make more errors. A second reason is that it harms performance in the sense that it takes more time to get any single task done when you’re shifting your attention back and forth. So, you know, imagine that you’re trying to write a paper—that’s what I do for a living, I write papers. And then suddenly, I switch my attention to check email and then switch back. 

ELISE HU: Guilty. 

GLORIA MARK: Yes, we all are. And it’s called a switch cost. Imagine that you have an internal whiteboard in your mind. And when you’re working on a task, let’s say you’re writing an article, you have the information you need for that task on this whiteboard: the topic you want to write about, the things you want to say. And then suddenly, we switch to check email. And what we’re doing in our mind is we’re erasing that whiteboard, and then we’re rewriting new information on it that we need—who is the email sender, what do we need to write? And then we suddenly switch our attention again and work on a different task, let’s say you’re checking a budget. And sometimes we can’t erase that whiteboard completely, there’s going to be a residue. And that’s going to interfere with the thing you’re trying to do right now, your task at hand. And let me mention the third reason why shifting attention is harmful to our performance. And that is that it creates stress. We know it causes stress. So when people are shifting back and forth rapidly, in laboratory studies we’ve seen that blood pressure rises. And of course, when people are asked, what’s your perceived level of stress, people also report higher stress subjectively. 

ELISE HU: How do you think that the way that we’re working now, hybrid work models, where our home lives blend in with our work lives, the line is more porous. How do you think that has affected our attention spans? 

GLORIA MARK: So the borders between work and home life tend to flow together. We’re distracted by different things when we’re at home. If you’re fortunate to be able to work in a private space, a private office, that’s better. The other thing is that when we work at home, we tend to extend our workday. It’s hard to create a structure of, now is work start time and now is work stop time in the same way we can when we’re physically present in an office. 

ELISE HU: How can we do it better? What is a more aspirational vision for human attention, whether that’s at the workplace or in other spheres? 

GLORIA MARK: You know, I can say a bit about individual solutions. One thing you can do to achieve agency over your attention is to practice what I call meta-awareness, which means being aware of what you’re doing as it’s unfolding. We tend to do so many automatic actions. When we use our devices, we might switch screens to look at social media, and that’s an automatic action. I see my phone and I might grab it, that’s automatic. And so if we can make these kinds of automatic actions, if we can raise them to our conscious awareness, then we can be intentional in our behaviors. What I do is probe. Probing is a way to ask yourself reasons for why you’re doing something. So when I have an urge to check the news—and I’m a news junkie, and I can recognize that urge—and I can ask myself, Gloria, do I need to read news right now? Why do I have this urge to check news? It’s usually because I’m procrastinating because I don’t want to do the task that’s in front of me. And when I recognize that, you know, it can help me stay on task. So another individual thing that we can do is to practice what’s called forethought. And forethought means imagining how our current actions are going to affect our future selves. And the best timeframe to think about is later in the day. So I have this urge to go on social media. I know I’m someone who’s going to spend 30 minutes on social media, maybe an hour. I have to pause and imagine my future self at 7 p.m. or 10 p.m. Am I going to be relaxing on the couch, feeling fulfilled—I completed what I planned to—or am I going to be still working on that overdue report? So practicing forethought can help put our current actions in check. Another thing that we can do as individuals is to design your day. Typically, when we think about scheduling our day, we think about scheduling things back-to-back and trying to pack as much as we can. But I’d like to change that kind of thinking. So we can design our day, first of all, to take advantage of those times when our focus is at its peak, and to arrange to do the hard work, the work that requires the most creativity, during those peak times, when we know we’re at our peak performance. And then when we’re in our troughs, you can do what I call subordinate work. There is an expression that the Japanese use, it’s called yohaku no bi , which refers to the beauty of empty space. And we should try to design empty space into our day. It’s time when you can pull back from work, time for contemplation, meditation. It’s time when you can take a walk. It’s time for you to replenish your mental resources, and it’s very important to design this empty space in your day, design it strategically. 

ELISE HU: Okay, so that is individually what we can do to sort of regain agency over our attention, or at least be more aware of how easily distracted we get. What about organizations, especially since remote and/or hybrid work is now the new normal and the reality of many jobs. How could organizations do it better? 

GLORIA MARK: Some organizations have talked about instituting a quiet time. This is a time during the day when electronic communications aren’t being sent. And, as you know, a lot of organizations have struggled with email. We spend a good chunk of our day just dealing with email. But we also found, and this was research done with my colleagues at Microsoft Research, we find that people check their email on average 77 times a day, which is quite a bit. That’s a lot of interruptions. And by having a quiet time, period of time, where you know there won’t be anything coming into your inbox, this can change these habitual behaviors of checking email so that we’re not doing it 77 times a day, right? And, you know, it might take some time to break this habit, but it can be done. So having a quiet time, you know, points during the day or even one period during the day, can certainly help rewire people’s habits and rewire their expectations of checking email. 

ELISE HU: Okay, so we’ve talked about how digital technologies can be harmful to our attention spans and the consequences of that. But could other technologies, like the advancements that we’ve seen in AI, be part of the cure, because I know that you have worked with Microsoft Research to look at how AI could now come in and maybe help people avoid distraction. 

GLORIA MARK: I did a study with Eve Kimani. She was the lead researcher, this was at Microsoft Research. The study was also done with Mary Czerwinski. And Eve had developed a conversational agent that served as a coach for people to help them understand when they needed a break, if they’ve been working too long. It would nudge them and say, Do you think it’s time for a break? When people spent too long on social media; so after, say, five minutes, this agent would nudge people and say, You know, you’ve been on social media for five minutes, don’t you think it’s time to come back now to work? And people reported that they liked having this kind of coach. And I think AI can really go a lot farther in this area to be able to detect when a person’s mental resources are getting low, when we’re getting in a trough so that people can understand it’s time to take a break. These kinds of agents can suggest the best kinds of breaks for us. So there’s really a lot of opportunity there. 

ELISE HU: I’m glad you mentioned breaks, because I’d love to know what makes a break effective. What would that look like? 

GLORIA MARK: A break is effective when you can really clear your head, get your attentional resources restored and replenished so that you feel fresh. So, you know, this happens to all of us: you’re reading, and then all of a sudden you find yourself reading the same line over and over again, or you’re trying to write and just can’t find words. That’s when it’s time to take a break, because our mental resources are getting low. And the best break of all is to go outside and take a walk in nature. And studies show that a walk in nature can be restorative. In work that I’ve done at Microsoft Research, and this was a study led by Saeed Abdullah, what happened is that people would walk outside for 20 minutes, and then we compare this against a baseline condition. And it turns out that just spending 20 minutes in nature enabled people to have better divergent thinking. And that means being able to think of more ideas and better quality ideas. And it’s surprising, but that’s an easy thing to do, is stepping outside and being in nature and taking a walk. That’s the best break that we can take. If you can’t go outside, if circumstances don’t allow, then moving around inside is also really good. But I also argue it’s okay to do some simple kind of rote activity, something that keeps you engaged, that’s calming, that makes you happy—that’s fine, as long as you can be strategic about doing it. You know, for me, I have this simple anagram game that makes me happy when I do it. But you know, I have to set limits. And it’s important for everyone to set limits, because we get rewards when we do these very simple games. And you want to make sure that, you know, we’re just doing it for a few minutes and we’re not falling down a rabbit hole.

ELISE HU: Okay, so this has been a lot of both research but also the promise that you see, the research seems to point in a direction for us that can allow us to flourish better at work and in our lives. And then in the bigger picture, we are at this inflection point for artificial intelligence and the rapid development of such. So what’s inspiring to you as you look at this collision of where we’re at, as a result of what has happened with the internet and information technologies, but also the promise of AI that we’re seeing in this particular moment? 

GLORIA MARK: Yeah, so I am optimistic. If we look back historically, the internet is relatively young, right, it didn’t come into widespread popularity until the mid ’90s. So we’re still making sense of it. I’m optimistic because I believe that we will do a course correction. For example, with technology design. It’s really important to get psychologists, people who really understand human behavior, to get them involved in the design of the systems. And you know, there are researchers, human computer interaction researchers, who work in product development. I would love to see psychologists on these design teams to help really understand what will be the impacts of this particular product on people. How is it going to affect their wellbeing? I mean, for me, that’s front and center, is to make sure that we can achieve greater wellbeing for people when they use their devices instead of getting exhausted. And AI also holds promise. AI techniques are getting more and more sophisticated, so we can better learn about people and what individuals’ patterns are, what works for an individual. 

ELISE HU: And we’ve actually seen that happen, right, with the Microsoft product Viva. It’s an employee experience platform and uses AI to help us be more intentional about the day and carve out time to focus and take breaks. 

GLORIA MARK: Yes, yes. So AI can help identify patterns in people’s work that an individual may not be able to recognize because we can only understand just so much data. We have bounds in our minds and our capabilities, what we can understand, but AI can look at large-scale patterns of our own data. Now, I do think that it’s very important to respect privacy. So people need to own their own data. 

ELISE HU: Right. I know that Microsoft, for example, has responsible AI standards and principles that help guide how they bring people to the next generation of AI. And in general, it’s been clear that psychologists, ethicists, experts in human behavior, should all be involved in these conversations. 

GLORIA MARK: Yeah, that makes me optimistic, because 20 years ago we weren’t talking about bringing ethicists on board in thinking about technology, design, and use, and now we are. So I do think there’s going to be a course correction. And, you know, I would like to see media literacy programs in schools so that even at a young age, kids can learn how to better interact with technology so that they don’t get overwhelmed with it and they don’t fall victim to technology overuse. 

ELISE HU: Okay, a lot to think about and full of insight, Dr. Gloria Mark, from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Mark, thank you. 

GLORIA MARK: Thank you for having me.

ELISE HU: And that’s it for this episode of WorkLab , the podcast from Microsoft. Please subscribe and check back for our next episode, where I’ll be talking with technologist John Maeda, the vice president of design and AI at Microsoft, about how artificial intelligence can boost creativity and reduce tedium at work. If you’ve got a question you’d like us to pose to leaders, please drop us an email at [email protected]. And check out the WorkLab digital publication, where you’ll find transcripts of all our episodes, along with thoughtful stories that explore the ways we work today. You can find all of it at microsoft.com/worklab. As for this podcast, please rate us, review, and follow us wherever you listen. That helps us out a lot. The WorkLab podcast is a place for experts to share their insights and opinions. As students of the future of work, Microsoft values inputs from a diverse set of voices. That said, the opinions and findings of our guests are their own and they may not necessarily reflect Microsoft’s own research or positions. WorkLab is produced by Microsoft with Godfrey Dadich Partners and Reasonable Volume. I’m your host, Elise Hu. Mary Melton is our correspondent. Sharon Kallander and Matthew Duncan produced this podcast. Jessica Voelker is the WorkLab editor. Until next time.

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• Neuroscience

You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish

T he average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain.

Researchers in Canada surveyed 2,000 participants and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms (EEGs). Microsoft found that since the year 2000 (or about when the mobile revolution began) the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds.

“Heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli — they’re more easily distracted by multiple streams of media,” the report read.

On the positive side, the report says our ability to multitask has drastically improved in the mobile age.

Microsoft theorized that the changes were a result of the brain’s ability to adapt and change itself over time and a weaker attention span may be a side effect of evolving to a mobile Internet.

The survey also confirmed generational differences for mobile use; for example, 77% of people aged 18 to 24 responded “yes” when asked, “When nothing is occupying my attention, the first thing I do is reach for my phone,” compared with only 10% of those over the age of 65.

And now congratulate yourself for concentrating long enough to make it through this article.

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Microsoft: Goldfish have higher attention spans than we do thanks to digital lifestyles

Microsoft cross-screen evolution research found that tech and social media savvy users who gobble up digital content on various devices have a shorter attention span than goldfish..

If you use multiple digital devices, then you may have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. According to Microsoft , “The average human attention span in 2000 was 12 seconds, but by 2013 it was only 8 seconds (1 second shorter than a goldfish!).”

Microsoft researchers surveyed 2,000 Canadians and used electroencephalograms (EEG scans) to study the brain activity of 112 participants. Microsoft said the goal for its cross-screen evolution research “is to understand what impact technology and today’s digital lives are having on attention spans.”

The research found that “overall, digital lifestyles have a negative impact on prolonged focus.” Multi-screening behavior, media consumption, social media usage, and technology adoption rate were listed as top factors that impact attention span and the ability to stay focused on a single task.

If you are tech-savvy yet can maintain a laser tunnel-vision focus, then you really should ask for a pay raise. Microsoft’s research found that long-term focus of early tech adopters, heavy social media users, and people who consume a lot of digital content is mostly eroded.

Although tech-savvy and heavy social media users were said to have “lower sustained attention in the long run,” these same individuals have “more bursts of high attention in the short term.” Microsoft found that “tech adoption and social media usage are training consumers to become better at processing and encoding information through short bursts of high attention,” but sadly “this advantage erodes over time.”

Additionally, “people with higher selective attention appear to actively choose to have fewer distractions and multi-screen less frequency. On the other hand, heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli–they’re more easily distracted by multiple streams of media.”

Other interesting findings from Microsoft’s research included:

• Following the same pattern as social media usage, early tech adopters pay more attention to digital screens. They also process information better than later adaptors in these interactive environments.
• For TV, while early adopters pay less attention overall, they still process information significantly better–they’ve trained their brains to do more with less.

The study, which specifically looked at how Canadians’ attention spans have been affected by digital lifestyles, was aimed at marketers as it is apparently harder than ever to snag and keep consumers’ attention. “Canadians lose interest, FAST,” the research states. “They’re suckers for novelty. It’s more exciting to jump from subject to subject or device to device than to concentrate on a single thing at any one time.”

“The thrill of finding something new often makes connected consumers jump off one experience into another. The ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter, dopamine, is released when consumers are doing something they find rewarding,” Microsoft said. “19% of online viewer defect in the first 10 seconds.” Part of the advice to advertisers was to make “increasingly immersive, multi-touchpoint experiences” a “priority to combat drop-off amongst these audiences.”

Advertisers were advised to address all three types of attention: sustained, selective, and alternating, as well as to look to outdoor advertisements for inspiration on how to best snag attention.

You can check out the research paper and an infographic here .

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Ms. Smith (not her real name) is a freelance writer and programmer with a special and somewhat personal interest in IT privacy and security issues. She focuses on the unique challenges of maintaining privacy and security, both for individuals and enterprises. She has worked as a journalist and has also penned many technical papers and guides covering various technologies. Smith is herself a self-described privacy and security freak.

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Microsoft study shows that tech is shortening your attention span

Think the abundance of technology in your life is making it harder to concentrate for long periods? Microsoft might just have some evidence to support your theory. It recently published a study (conducted using both surveys and EEG scans ) suggesting that the average attention span has fallen precipitously since the start of the century. While people could focus on a task for 12 seconds back in 2000, that figure dropped to 8 seconds in 2013 -- about one second less than a goldfish. Reportedly, a lot of that reduction stems from a combination of smartphones and an avalanche of content. Many younger people find themselves compulsively checking their phones, and the glut of things to do on the web (such as social networking) makes it all too easy to find diversions.

Thankfully, it's not all bad. While tech is hurting attention spans overall, it also appears to improve your abilities to both multitask and concentrate in short bursts. You not only get a better sense of what deserves your attention, but do a better job of committing useful things to memory. There are limits to these improvements (heavy social networking tends to make things worse as a whole), but you can take comfort in knowing that there's an upside to your gadget addictions.

[Image credit: Shutterstock]

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A review of the trend of microlearning

Journal of Work-Applied Management

ISSN : 2205-2062

Article publication date: 17 December 2020

Issue publication date: 26 April 2021

Microlearning has been considered as a promising topic in work-based learning. This paper aims to review the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. Hopefully, the findings can serve as a reference for the education sector, government, business and academia to promote, design and use microlearning.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, two sets of analysis were conducted. Firstly, the authors analysed the publication trend of microlearning. Second, the authors analysed the trend of Internet searches related to microlearning. More specifically, the authors analysed real-world data of 14 years obtained from Scopus and Google Trends for the purpose. These data include the first relevant publication found in the database.

In total, 476 relevant publications have been identified during 2006–2019. According to the findings from the analysis of the identified publications, microlearning is a relevantly new and emerging global topic involving authors, affiliations and funding sponsors from different countries. Moreover, many microlearning-related publications were conducted from perspectives of e-learning or mobile learning. Furthermore, the authors notice higher education was the most frequently mentioned education level in the identified publications. On the other hand, language learning (i.e. second language, vocabulary learning, etc.) had been mentioned more times in the titles and abstracts than other subject areas. Overall, the increasing trend of publications on “microlearning” (as a knowledge supply) is in line with the established increasing Internet searches of “microlearning” (as a practical demand) in recent years.

Practical implications

From the work-based learning perspective, microlearning has been considered as one of the key topics in talent development topics. Policymakers, educators, researchers and participators have the responsibility to explore how to promote, design and use microlearning to help people to learn in the right direction through valid knowledge with ethical consideration.

Originality/value

Although many works had been done on microlearning, there is a lack of comprehensive studies reviewing the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing real-world data obtained from Scopus and Google Trends – these data include the first relevant publication found in the database. The authors believe this is the first time that a study has been conducted to comprehensively review the development trends of microlearning. Hopefully, this study can shed some light on related research.

• Microlearning
• Work-based learning

Leong, K. , Sung, A. , Au, D. and Blanchard, C. (2021), "A review of the trend of microlearning", Journal of Work-Applied Management , Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 88-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-10-2020-0044

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Kelvin Leong, Anna Sung, David Au and Claire Blanchard

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

In recent years, microlearning has been considered as a promising topic in work-based learning. This paper aims to review the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. The findings can serve as a reference for the education sector, government and academia to promote, design and use microlearning. Although there are many concepts and versions of microlearning ( Hug, 2005 ), the common features of microlearning, as per Buchem and Hamelmann (2010) , include microcontent, focussing on a single definable idea or topic and short learning time (i.e. no longer than 15 min).

In brief, the key benefits of using microlearning include (1) better retention of concepts ( Giurgiu, 2017 ; Shail, 2019 ), (2) better engagement for learners ( De Gagne et al. , 2019a , b ; Nikou, 2019 ; Liao and Zhu, 2012 ), (3) improving learners' motivation ( Nikou and Economdies, 2018 ; Halbach and Solheim, 2018 ; Shail, 2019 ; Stronck, 1983 ), (4) engaging in collaborative learning ( Reinhardt and Elwood, 2019 ; Zhang and Ren, 2011 ; Chang and Liu, 2015 ) and (5) improving learning ability and performance ( Mohammed et al. , 2018 ; Jomah et al. , 2016 ).

Big data plays an important role in the development of microlearning. In the age of big data, human's attention span is decreasing. As per Hebert (1971) , “ what information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it ” (p. 41). An example of short attention span in the age of big data can be found in the music industry, as per ( Gauvin, 2017 ), the average time that passed before the audience would hear the vocals on any radio song was 23 s, today the average intro is just 5 s long. Wertz (2017) also suggested that 40% of users are likely to abandon a website if it does not load within three seconds or less. Furthermore, a survey ( Gausby, 2015 ) conducted by Microsoft indicated that the average attention span of a human dropped from 12 to eight seconds, which means shorter than a goldfish. Given the average human attention span is decreasing, microlearning becomes more and more important because it emphasises short learning duration.

On the other hand, as per Wertz (2018 ), instant gratification has become an expectation since the emergence of the Internet and the immense growth of social media in the big data age. This expectation also affects how people view their time and how they learn. In comparison to the traditional approach that face-to-face study times are scheduled, it is now people expect to learn instantly anytime, anywhere. In the workplace, people are used to have information at their fingertips, finding the answers they need within minutes. This has dramatically changed people's expectations of workplace learning. Also, more and more employees are preferred to taking control of their own learning. A previous survey ( Mazareanu, 2019 ) suggests that 80% of employees are learning when they need it. Accordingly, the need for on-demand training or just-in-time learning is growing ( Brandenburg and Ellinger, 2003 ). This trend also facilitates the development of microlearning. As per Gabrielli et al. (2006) , small chunks of the learning content can enable learners to access them more easily in specific moments and conditions of the day.

In fact, the applications of microlearning have been widely studied in different fields, such as in textiles ( Buhu and Buhu, 2019 ), health professional education ( De Gagne et al. , 2019a , b ), engineering ( Said and Çavuş, 2018 ), language learning ( Edge et al. , 2011 ) and college physical education ( Zhang and Zhang, 2017 ). Moreover, as per Florida (2002) ; Ogata and Yano (2003 ), microlearning is a research area that aims to explore new ways of responding to the growing need for lifelong learning or learning demand of knowledge workers. A similar view can also be found in other studies, such as Jomah et al. (2016) .

From the work-based learning perspective, microlearning has been considered as one of the key topics in talent development ( Moore, 2017 ). According to Emerson and Berge (2018 ), microlearning can facilitate knowledge acquisition in the workplace by engaging and motivating employees to communicate and apply what they have learned. On the other hand, Overton (2011) indicated that managers prefer on-demand learning and access to up-to-date information in a timely manner under the current competitive business environment. Madden and Govender (2020) further suggested that the learning and development departments of businesses are focussing on the emerging concept of microlearning to support the fast-paced, multitask-orientated and digitally savvy learners. Furthermore, Hesse et al. (2019) concluded that microlearning is effective at increasing the feelings of confidence and accuracy in the work of dairy personnel. In brief, we suggest that work-based learning needs digital transformations in order to meet today's fast-changing business environment in the big data age. This suggestion is similar to the viewpoints from Downes (2005) ; Chisholm (2005 ), they summarised that renewed and innovative ways of work-based learnings are required according to the ways we live, work and learn today.

Although many works have been done on microlearning, there is a lack of comprehensive studies reviewing the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing real-world data obtained from Scopus and Google Trends – these data include the first relevant publication found in the database. Therefore, an extensive reading list with a good range of dates will be summarised in this paper.

The rest of this paper is organised as follows: we first explain the research designs and report the findings in the next section. Given we are reviewing two different trends (i.e. publications and Internet searches) based on two different data sets; therefore, the Research Design and Findings section is divided into two parts, respectively. Finally, discussion and suggestions are provided in the Conclusion section.

2. Research design and findings

In this study, two sets of analysis were conducted. Firstly, we analysed the publication trend of microlearning. Second, we analysed the trend of Internet searches related to microlearning.

In both analyses, we also explored the entire population of corresponding data sources. For the publication trend of microlearning, the data source refers to all the microlearning-related literature reviews in the Scopus database since the year 2006. For the trend of Internet searches related to microlearning, the data source refers to all the search activities in Google that relate to microlearning since the year 2006. Both analyses were started from 2006 because we found the first relevant publication in the Scopus database in this year. Although it is not possible to make statistical generalisations about the sample being studied, we can make analytical generalisations about the trends of microlearning by exploring the entire data sources. More specifically, this study can provide a comprehensive whole picture about the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches during the study period (i.e. 2006–2019). We also presented the corresponding trends of (1) e-learning and (2) learning for the comparison purpose. These two trends can be considered because microlearning is under the disciplines of e-learning and learning. More detail explanations about the analysis approaches are provided in the following sections.

2.1 Research design

2.1.1 publication trends of microlearning.

In order to understand the publication trend, data were collected from Scopus. Scopus ( https://www.scopus.com/ ) is an abstract and citation database that covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in various subject fields.

Thenumber of related publications over time

Distribution of authors by countries

Distribution of affiliations

Funding sponsors

Source types of publication

Word frequency analysis I: based on the titles

Word frequency analysis II: based on the abstracts

These seven perspectives are selected because we aim to include as many possible perspectives as in this study in order to provide more comprehensive and diverse views on the publication trends. In this regard, the seven selected perspectives were the most accessible types of information that the database (i.e. Scopus) can generate for the purpose. Given the approach being used in this study is directly repeatable; therefore, the findings are transparent and reproducible. As per the considerations suggested by Fisch and Block (2018) , transparent and reproducible are two key features of the systematic literature review in business and management research. Moreover, similar approach has been applied in other studies, such as Wang and Chen (2010) ; Liao et al. (2017) ; White and McCain (1998 ).

2.1.2 Internet searches related to microlearning

In addition to analysing publication trends, we also conducted an Internet search analysis that could generate understanding on trends of information needs on related knowledge. In other words, we conducted the Internet search analysis with the aim to obtain an additional view in terms of how public interests on microlearning were changing during the period. The findings from the Internet search analysis can then serve as a reference for policymakers because the findings reflect the market needs.

In this study, we used a public-accessible online tool, Google Trends ( www.google.com/trends/ ) to analyse the Internet searching trends of “microlearning”. In addition, two related search terms, “elearning” and “learning”, were also be used for the comparison purpose. A search term is a keyword that a user enters in the Google search engine to satisfy his or her information needs.

Google Trends is a free public web service developed by Google. It shows how often specific search terms have been queried over a specific period. In other words, Google Trends is a platform that summarises the popularity of top search queries in Google.

The data from Google Trends have widely been used by researchers for analysing human behaviour and user interests across various fields ( Jun et al. , 2018 ). One of the notable examples is that Ginsberg et al. (2009) published their findings in Nature and reported that they successfully used the data from Google Trends to predict the spread of influenza epidemics – even earlier than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other examples include, to name a few, Choi and Varian (2012) demonstrated how to use search engine data on Google to forecast near-term values of economic indicators, such as unemployment claims, consumer confidence, etc. Sung et al. (2020) studied the relationships between Google search activities and the finance education trend. The works of Durmusoglu (2017) demonstrated the uses of Google Trends data to assess public understanding of the environmental risks.

In this analysis, (1st January 2006 to 31st December 2019) search terms (i.e. keywords) data of 14 years were collected from Google Trends. This selected period is in line with the analysing period of publication conducted above, that is, from the first relevant publication found. The data collected refer to the search behaviour of Google search engine users, that is, what these users are looking for over a specified period. Moreover, we set the geographical location criterion in the Google Trends as “worldwide”; therefore, the results represent user behaviours from all over the world instead of any specific geographical location.

2.2 Findings

In this section, we shall report the findings of our analyses. These findings provide a comprehensive picture from different perspectives on the global trends of microlearning. Further discussions will be provided in the Conclusion section on the importance of microlearning in work-based learning.

2.2.1 Findings on analysing publication trends of microlearning

2.2.1.1 the number of related publications over time.

By searching publications containing the term “microlearning” in all selected fields (i.e. article title, abstract, keywords, authors, source title, affiliation and funding information) in Scopus, we identified 476 related publications in total, including the first publication found in 2006. Moreover, as per Figure 1 , an increasing trend from 2016 to 2019 is found.

We further evaluated the publications containing the terms “elearning” and “learning” in Scopus for the same period (i.e. from 2016 to 2019). Both Figures 2 and 3 show similar increasing trends, although the increasing rates of the related publications were not as high as “microlearning”. More specifically, the number of publications related to “microlearning” has increased 47 times (i.e. from 2 to 94) from 2006 to 2019; however, numbers of publications related to “elearning” and “learning” have increased only 4.45 and 4.11 times, respectively, during the same period.

2.2.1.2 Distribution of authors by countries

The identified publications containing “microlearning” were contributed by scholars from 75 countries. Table 1 summarises the countries having ten or more publications during the period, for example, the table shows that 78 (i.e. 16.4%) publications involved scholars from the USA, this participation rate is the highest amongst all the countries.

2.2.1.3 Distribution of affiliations

As per Table 2 , in total, 15 affiliations from different countries were involved in five or more publications during the period and the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, was ranked to the top, followed by the University of Glasgow, the UK.

2.2.1.4 Funding sponsors

In total, 69 (14.5%) publications were funded by 51 identified sponsors, in which six of the identified sponsors involved two or more publications, as per Table 3 .

Overall, Tables 1 – 3 provide evidence that microlearning is a global topic. In summary, as per the findings, microlearning had become a global topic that involved researchers' contributions from different countries and affiliations. In addition, the topic had also successfully attracted funding from sponsors globally. In fact, we observed that many publications involved cross affiliations and cross-countries collaborations. These findings could provide an empirical reference to support future collaborative research directions.

2.2.1.5 Source types of publication

Table 4 and Figure 4 demonstrate that conference proceeding was the key source type of “microlearning”-related publication. Overall, 41% of the works were published as conference proceeding, 34% were published in journals. Table 4 , Figure 5 and Figure 6 further show the distributions of source type of “elearning” and “learning”, respectively.

As per the figures, conference proceeding was the major source type of publication for “microlearning”, whereas journal was the major source type of publication for “elearning” and “learning”. We consider this finding reflecting that “microlearning” was a relatively new topic. This consideration is based on the general difference between conference proceeding and journal. In brief, a conference proceedings article is published in the proceedings of a conference, and it usually reflects an earlier-term research work (preliminary findings) or an innovative idea that has emerged in course of the research study. On the other hand, a journal paper tends to be a more comprehensive and in-depth research than a conference proceeding.

2.2.1.6 Word frequency analysis I: based on the titles

Given a title can be used to identify the main idea, work and the context of a publication, it also conveys a minimal summary of a publication's content; therefore, the frequency words found in the titles of the identified publications can indicate the trends of related research in the field of “microlearning”.

We conducted this analysis at different levels (i.e. from a single word to two-word phrases). Table 5 shows the top ten most frequent single words found in the titles.

On top of reviewing single word in a title, we further extended the word frequency analysis to the two-word phrase level in order to obtain a more comprehensive view.

Table 6 shows the top ten most frequent two-word phrases found in the titles. More specifically, 11 phrases are listed in the table because four phrases are having the same counts. In the table, the phrases without meanings were excluded, such as “in the”, “of the” and “in higher”.

We did not extend the analysis to three-word phrases because only two three-word phrases (i.e. “in higher education” and “a case study”) had ten or more counts, that is, the results are not representative.

In brief, according to the findings, the words or phrases related to e-learning or mobile learning (e.g. mobile, mobile learning and e-learning) are often found in the titles. Also, “language” is a frequently mentioned topic in the titles as well.

2.2.1.7 Word frequency analysis II: based on the abstracts

An abstract is a brief summary of a publication. Tables 7 – 9 show the top ten most frequent single words, two- and three-word phrases found in the abstracts, respectively. Similar to word frequency analysis I above, the phrases without meanings, such as “in the”, “the results of”, “this paper presents” or similar phrases were excluded.

In brief, similar to the findings in the titles, the words or phrases related to e-learning or mobile learning (e.g. mobile, mobile learning and e-learning) are often found in the abstracts. Moreover, higher education is the most frequently mentioned education level in the abstracts.

2.2.2 Findings on analysing Internet searches related to microlearning

Figures 7–9 demonstrate the “search volume indexes” (from 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2019) of the terms “microlearning”, “elearning” and “learning”, respectively. For these Figures, the horizontal axis represents time and the number at the vertical axis is the “search volume index”. The index represents search interest relative to the highest point on the chart and time (i.e. from 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2019 in this study). A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term, while a score of 0 means there was not any search for the term.

As per Figure 7 , the search activities of the term “microlearning” fluctuate significantly during 2006–2010. It holds steady at a relatively low level from 2010 to 2015 and then an increasing trend is shown since 2015.

On the other hand, as per Figure 8 , an increasing trend is found for the search term “elearning”. In contrast, the trend line “learning” ( Figure 9 ) illustrates a slightly decreasing trend from left- (earlier in terms of timeline) to right-hand sides (more recent in terms of timeline) that means the overall search volume of term “learning” was decreasing during the same period.

Given previous studies have found a strong association between online searching behaviour and public interests on various social topics in the real world, such as flu prevention ( Ginsberg et al. , 2009 ), investor attention and initial public offering (IPO) anomalies ( Song et al. , 2011 ) and forecasting of cinema visits ( Hand and Judge, 2012 ). Therefore, we suggest the increasing trend of the searching pattern of “microlearning” since 2015, as per Figure 7 , reflects the growing interests in microlearning.

3. Conclusion

In this paper, we analysed real-world data of 14 years obtained from Scopus and Google Trends for the purpose. These data include the first relevant publication found in the database.

According to the findings from analysing the identified publications, microlearning is a relatively new and emerging global topic involving authors, affiliations and funding sponsors from different countries. On the other hand, the Internet searches of microlearning also increased during the period. Therefore, according to the findings of publication trends and Internet searches, we suggest that the microlearning could mature and develop into a critical mainstream issue in the future or become a major trend in its own right. As a result, researchers in the field should consider microlearning as a promising research direction. In addition, policymakers, funding sponsors and affiliations should consider to encourage research in microlearning-related topics as per the identified trends. Moreover, as per the results from the two “word frequency analyses”, many microlearning-related publications were conducted from perspectives of e-learning or mobile learning. This reflects technologies, particularly mobile technologies, playing an important role in the development of microlearning. Furthermore, we notice higher education was the most frequently mentioned education level in the identified publications. This could be explained by the different practices between higher education and lower levels of educations, more specifically, compared with lower levels of education, higher education students are more self-initiative, they need to identify their own needs and have to be responsible for own goals and progress, which is more suitable for using microlearning than lower-level educations by nature. On the other hand, language learning (i.e. second language and vocabulary learning) had been mentioned more times in the titles and abstracts than other subject areas. Overall, the increasing trend of publications on “microlearning” (as a knowledge supply) is in line with the established increasing Internet searches of “microlearning” (as a practical demand) in recent years.

As future works, cross-disciplinary research studies can help establish a more comprehensive theoretical framework for creating better understanding on how to effectively apply microlearning to support workplace learning and higher education in practice. Moreover, policymakers should reflect on how to promote, design and use microlearning to prepare people for digital transformation in the fast-changing world. Furthermore, given microlearning also plays an important role in self-learning, policymakers, educators, researchers and participators have the responsibility to explore how to promote, design and use microlearning to help work-based learners to learn in a right direction through valid knowledge ethically.

In summary, microlearning enables work-based learners to gain new knowledge or skills just in time to meet their immediate needs in this fast-changing world; in addition, microlearning can also help work-based learners to achieve a specific, actionable task. These benefits make microlearning in a work context particularly valuable. Moreover, many work-based learners who are constantly busy and have only limited time to learn new skills or refresh their memory in today's highly competitive business environment can efficiently utilise microlearning. As a result, we suggest that microlearning will become an even more important work-based learning topic in foreseeable future. We believe this is the first time that a study has been conducted to comprehensively review the development trends of microlearning. Hopefully, this study can shed some light on related research.

Thenumber of publications (microlearning) from 2006 to 2019

Thenumber of publications (e-learning) from 2006 to 2019

Thenumber of publications (learning) from 2006 to 2019

Distributions of the source type (microlearning)

Distributions of the source type (e-learning)

Distributions of the source type (learning)

Thesearching trend of the term “microlearning” from January 2006 to December 2019

Thesearching trend of the term “elearning” from January 2006 to December 2019

Thesearching trend of the term “learning” from January 2006 to December 2019

Counts of contributions by countries

Counts of affiliations

Counts of funding sponsors

Counts of the source type

Top ten most frequent single words found in the titles

Top ten most frequent two-word phrases found in the titles

Top ten most frequent single words found in the abstracts

Top ten most frequent two-word phrases found in the abstracts

Top ten most frequent three-word phrases found in the abstracts

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Further reading

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