Today’s GCSE students are finding it increasingly difficult to revise for their exams due to the need to indulge in social media, says a study out today. With most sixteen-year-olds updating their Instagram Story at least twice every hour, and then looking at all their friends’ updates, and checking WhatsApp and Snapchat and Twitter, it is estimated that schoolchildren can now only study solidly on their own for up to eight minutes before being distracted, the study found.
‘Other studies have shown that goldfish have a greater attention span than the average GCSE student, while the concentration level of most of them is similar to that of a homeopathic remedy,’ said the study author today, adding, ‘the children, that is, not the goldfish. Their concentration is far better than that of the children.’ Parental help with their children’s studies, once a pleasurable, joint activity of using a highlighter to pick out key words in textbooks, is now limited to shouting, ‘Get off your bloody phone and do some work.’