Declining Attention Span in the Digital Age: Emerging Challenges for Teacher Education — An Empirical Study with Special Reference to Bhopal District

Abstract

(The rapid integration of smartphones, social-media platforms, online learning resources, and digital applications has reshaped how student-teachers engage with academic content. While digital tools offer significant pedagogical advantages, behaviours such as frequent notification checking, recreational screen use, multitasking, and constant switching between digital activities may undermine sustained attention during learning. This study investigates the relationship between digital-device behaviour and attention-related difficulties among student-teachers in Bhopal district, Madhya Pradesh. Employing a quantitative descriptive-correlational design, the research involved 300 student-teachers (150 male, 150 female) selected through stratified sampling. Data were collected using a 30-item Digital Attention and Distraction Scale covering five dimensions: recreational digital exposure, notification-related distraction, multitasking tendency, attention-related difficulty, and purposeful educational technology use. Analysis included descriptive statistics, reliability assessment, Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-test, and multiple regression. Results from the dataset indicate that recreational digital exposure, notification-related distraction, and multitasking tendency are positively linked to attention-related difficulties, collectively explaining nearly one-third of the variance. No significant gender difference emerged. The findings suggest that teacher education must go beyond technological competence to foster digital self-regulation, attention management, and intentional technology use. The study offers a context-sensitive framework for examining how digital behaviours influence academic attention among prospective teachers.)