> I guess the question is not has attention spans declined, I think pretty much everyone can say yes.

What evidence do you base that belief on?

That heavily depends on the context. Is your child having difficulty staying alert in the classroom? Then the answer is yes.

Are you having difficulty understanding a bestseller book? No worries there, just watch a movie or something.

Do you think children should be in a classroom? I tend to believe that children should be outside personally, with very little indoor activity. Even if it's snowing. I learned way more by doing my own thing, what ever that is, then I ever did stuck inside of a class room having a teacher read word for word from a textbook.

I think there are varieties in the aspect of learning to be considered, some don't learn the same way of others. And that should be considered as well.

But generally I don't think attention spans have anything to do with classroom. People were not paying attention in classrooms WAY before cell phones were invented. The problem is the "room" part of a classroom in my opinion.

Reading I do agree with though.

"I learned way more by doing my own thing, what ever that is, then I ever did stuck inside of a class room having a teacher read word for word from a textbook."

And I learned a lot more by reading stuff from Wikipedia on my own pace than I learned reading textbooks. So, good point.

Most people require focus to come up with better ideas, so even in that narrow sense, I would argue that it matters a whole lot.