Why Buzzkill exists

Your focus didn't break. It got taken.

We now switch screens about every 47 seconds. A generation is growing up with a phone that's built to pull them away. Buzzkill is our attempt to win some of that attention back, together.

The trend

We stay on one screen for less than a minute

For two decades, Gloria Mark's team at UC Irvine has timed how long people stay on one screen before switching to something else. The number keeps falling.

Average time on one screen before switching

Seconds, from studies of people at work (Gloria Mark, UC Irvine)

Show as a table
WhenAverage time on one screen
2004about 150 seconds (2½ minutes)
201275 seconds
Recent years47 seconds

What this measures: how long people stay on one screen before switching, not a hard limit of the brain. That's the hopeful part: it's a habit shaped by our surroundings, and habits can be retrained.

The cost

Every pickup costs more than it looks

46%

of US teens are online "almost constantly"

Up from 24% in 2014–15. Older teens are the most connected.

Pew Research Center, 2024

23 min

to get back to a task after an interruption

On average 23 minutes 15 seconds, usually after doing two other things first.

Gloria Mark, UC Irvine

800 people

did worse with their phone on the desk

Even switched off and face down. The ones whose phone was in another room scored best.

Ward et al., UT Austin, 2017

Myth check

No, you don't have the attention span of a goldfish

The famous "8 seconds, shorter than a goldfish" stat came from a 2015 marketing report that cited a website no one could trace back to real research. Attention researchers say our basic ability to focus hasn't measurably changed.

What changed is everything around us: more pings, more tabs, and a phone within reach all day. So the fix isn't a better brain. It's a better environment.

The evidence

Students have a phone problem. We built the fix.

Three studies, three ways phones hurt studying, and the part of Buzzkill that answers each one. Every card links to the paper.

Phones eat a quarter of class time

Read the paper →

What they found

  • Researchers tracked the phones of 84 college students in class for 14 weeks.
  • Students were on their phones for over 25% of class time.
  • A phone distraction happened every 3–4 minutes and lasted over a minute.
  • More phone use in class went with lower grades.

Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim, Han, Lee, Mark & Lee, "Understanding smartphone usage in college classrooms: A long-term measurement study," Computers & Education, 2019.

How Buzzkill fixes it

Every pickup gets caught and counted

The 3–4 minute check-in habit only works because nobody notices. Buzzkill notices every single pickup, roasts you out loud, and makes you shake it off.

Your pickups per hour and your longest focus stretch show up on your dashboard and the leaderboard, so you can watch the habit shrink.

Even a buzz you ignore breaks your focus

Read the paper →

What they found

  • People did an attention task while some got calls or texts on their own phone.
  • They never touched the phone, and still made more mistakes.
  • The drop was about as big as the one from actually using a phone.
  • Why: a notification starts your mind wandering, and that lasts after the buzz ends.

Stothart, Mitchum & Yehnert, "The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2015.

How Buzzkill fixes it

Face down, and checking waits for the break

Phones lie face down for the whole session, so a lit-up screen can't pull you in. And since picking up costs you, there's no point in "just checking."

The group votes on a pomodoro (like 25 minutes of focus, then 5 of break). Breaks are free phone time, so you know exactly when you can look.

Phone distraction makes you forget what you just learned

Read the paper →

What they found

  • A meta-analysis combining 27 randomized experiments with 2,245 participants.
  • Phone distraction had a medium-sized negative effect on what students remembered right after learning.
  • The hit was biggest for lectures. (Results for reading were mixed, so the authors call that part tentative.)

Chen, Yan, Moeyaert & Bangert-Drowns, "Mobile Multitasking in Learning: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of Mobilephone Distraction on Young Adults' Immediate Recall," SSRN preprint, 2024.

How Buzzkill fixes it

Protect the whole session, together

Buzzkill is built for study groups: everyone's phone is on the line, so you keep each other honest from start to finish.

Teams mode raises the stakes. One person's pickup busts the whole team, so nobody wants to be the one who slips.

Winning it back

What the research says helps, and how Buzzkill uses it

Research

Distance beats willpower

Just having your phone nearby uses up focus, because part of your brain is busy not checking it. Out of reach did best.

Buzzkill

Phones go face down, and lifting one costs you

Everyone's phone sits face down for the whole session. The moment one moves, the brick knows.

Research

Phone-free rooms help struggling students most

In a randomized trial at 10 colleges in India, phone-free lectures raised grades slightly (0.07 standard deviations), with the biggest gains for students who were behind.

Buzzkill

A phone-free table you choose

No teacher, no ban: your study group agrees to it, and the brick keeps everyone honest.

Research

Interruptions are expensive

Each switch can cost over 20 minutes of getting back on track, so long, protected blocks of work matter.

Buzzkill

Pomodoro blocks with real breaks

The group votes on focus and break lengths. Breaks don't count, so you can check your phone without guilt.

Our idea

Make slipping a little harder, and a little public

Not a study result: this is the bet Buzzkill is built on. A phone pickup is easy and private. We make it take effort and make it visible.

Buzzkill

Shake to stop the roast

Pick up your phone and the brick roasts you by name. You shake for 10 seconds to silence it, longer every time after.

Buzzkill so far

We measure it, so you can see it change

We can't claim Buzzkill restores anyone's attention span yet. What we can do is measure: every finished game tracks pickups per hour, so you and your group can watch your own number go down.

–

minutes of focused studying

in finished Buzzkill games

–

players on the board

with an account

–

pickups per hour, on average

lower is better

Start a study session See the leaderboard

Sources

  1. Gloria Mark (UC Irvine) on screen-switching: 2½ minutes in 2004, 75 seconds in 2012, 47 seconds recently. UC Newsroom, 2024
  2. Gloria Mark on resuming interrupted work (23 minutes 15 seconds). Gallup interview
  3. Teens online "almost constantly": 46% in 2024, 24% in 2014–15. Pew Research Center, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024
  4. Ward, Duke, Gneezy & Bos, "Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2017. doi.org/10.1086/691462
  5. Randomized phone-free lectures at 10 colleges in India: grades up 0.07 SD, largest gains for struggling students. Knowledge at Wharton
  6. Kim et al., "Understanding smartphone usage in college classrooms: A long-term measurement study," Computers & Education, 2019. doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103611
  7. Stothart, Mitchum & Yehnert, "The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2015. doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100
  8. Chen, Yan, Moeyaert & Bangert-Drowns, "Mobile Multitasking in Learning: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of Mobilephone Distraction on Young Adults' Immediate Recall," SSRN, 2024. SSRN 4901454
  9. Why the "goldfish" attention-span stat is a myth. Wall Street Journal, via UW–Madison