Teen Focus Research

How Scrolling Stole Your Focus

ScrollBye measures your Focus Sustainability Index — a composite score that quantifies how passive screen time, sleep, and study habits shape your cognitive attention. Take the 2-minute survey and see exactly where you stand.

Measure My Focus → How it works
WHO-5 aligned
PHQ-2 based
Peer-reviewed data
Scroll to explore
The Problem

The numbers are
harder to ignore than your phone.

📱
0h
Average teen screen time per day
American Psychological Association, 2024 — recreational screen use only, excluding schoolwork.
🧠
0%
Drop in sustained attention after 2h+ passive scrolling
Twenge et al. (2024), JAMA Pediatrics — measured via continuous performance tasks vs. baseline.
💸
$0
Annual attention economy revenue per teen
Common Sense Media (2024) — estimated ad revenue attributable to U.S. teens aged 13–17 across major platforms.
The Process

Three steps to understand
your focus

01
📝
Answer 6 questions
About your screen habits, sleep, study time, mood, and social app usage. No account needed. Takes under 2 minutes.
02
⚡
Get your FSI score
Your Focus Sustainability Index is calculated instantly — a number from 0–100 reflecting your cognitive attention capacity.
03
🌍
See how you compare
Compare your FSI against hundreds of other teens worldwide, see personalised insights, and track your score over time.
Screen Time Types

Not all screens
are equal

● Passive Mindless consumption

You watch, scroll, and absorb — but your brain isn't building anything. The algorithm picks the next dopamine hit. You don't even realise an hour has passed.

TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts
Binge-watching Netflix / YouTube
Infinite feed scrolling
Autoplay with no intent
↓ Every extra hour of passive screen time reduces FSI by 8–12 points on average.
● Active Engaged creation

You choose what to make, play, or learn. Your brain is in the loop — problem-solving, deciding, building. Time is intentional, not stolen.

Coding, drawing, photo/video editing
Intentional gaming with strategy
Video calls with friends
Researching or learning new skills
↑ Active screen use preserves and builds the same attention networks passive scrolling erodes.
The Science

How the FSI score is built

Focus Sustainability Index

Five weighted factors. Each one is evidence-backed. The formula below shows a sample profile — your actual score reflects your real inputs.

72
sample FSI
Sleep Quality7–9h optimal
30%
Passive ScreenPenalises excess
25%
Active ScreenRewards creation
20%
Study HoursAcademic effort
15%
Mood / WellbeingPHQ-2 aligned
10%
Weighted result
FSI = (sleep×0.30) + (passive_penalty×0.25) + (active×0.20) + (study×0.15) + (mood×0.10)
72 / 100
Global Rankings

See how you rank
against other teens

Top FSI Scores

Sorted by Focus Score Index — great starting point for new players.

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Take the survey to claim your spot on the leaderboard.

Get My FSI Score →
🔥

Sit with this for a moment.

You didn't choose to have a 7-second attention span. The platforms you use spend billions of dollars engineering it. ScrollBye exists to name the problem, measure it, and give you the data to fight back.

▶ Playing — close your eyes for 10 seconds.
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." — Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
"Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results." — Cal Newport, Deep Work (2016)

Two minutes to find out
what scrolling cost you.

Answer 6 questions. Get your Focus Sustainability Index. Understand your attention habits better than ever before.

Start the Survey — It's Free →

Anonymous option available · No account required · Open source on GitHub