Debate Debate
This House Believes That Catering to Shorter Attention Spans is Dumbing Down Education
As attention spans shrink and learners increasingly demand fast, visual, and interactive content, educators and trainers are rethinking how learning is delivered. Bite-sized videos, gamified lessons, instant feedback loops, and microlearning platforms are becoming the new norm. But is this evolution a smart adaptation to the realities of modern attention - or a dangerous concession to distraction culture?
Has education truly improved by aligning itself with the consumption habits shaped by social media and short-form content? Or are we trading rigour and reflection for convenience and speed? Are we making learning more accessible and engaging, or are we hollowing it out, replacing deep thinking with shallow retention?
And more importantly, are we over-prioritising short-term learning gains at the expense of long-term, holistic outcomes? In trying to meet learners where they are, are we ultimately lowering the bar?
Join the debate and explore whether this shift is progressive innovation - or a subtle erosion of what education is meant to be.
Adam Salkeld
Co-Founder and Director, Digital Learning Associates
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
Computational Social Scientist, Center for Adaptive Rationality (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Marion Thain
Professor of Culture and Technology, University of Edinburgh, Director of Edinburgh Futures Institute
Moderator
Michael Onyango
Agenda Setter, The 4gotten Bottomillions
Michael Onyango is the founder of Africa’s Forgotten Bottom Millions (4BM), a transformative WhatsApp platform that reaches over 500,000 people weekly, providing young Africans across several countries with access to career opportunities through digital technology. Since 2016, 4BM has shared over 500,000 verified opportunities, including scholarships, fellowships, grants, and job offers, helping young people gain skills and build successful careers.
Michael has been at the forefront of economic empowerment, chanmpioning the use of frontier technoolgies, leading initiatives across interdisciplinary sectors within governments, NGOs, and the private sector in Africa and globally. He served as a key member of the Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce under the Ministry of ICT, Kenya, and was formerly the Minister responsible for Communication, Information, and Technology in the County Government of Kisumu.
Currently, Michael is a Senior Skoll Foundation Fellow, an alumni Fellow in Social Innovation from the Rockefeller Foundation, and serves on the Advisory Board of the African Blockchain Institute. He actively works with young Africans, leveraging technology to drive impactful change. Michael has also played a significant role in shaping Kenya’s creative industries, including co-developing the roadmap for the sector in collaboration with IBM, positioning it as a catalyst for economic growth and outlining strategies to double its contribution to Kenya’s GDP.