The capitalist system’s promotion of a culture of obsession with constant productivity, overwork and shaming relaxation or idleness as “laziness” is a big part of why attention spans have deteriorated. We are constantly being told that if we are not always doing something valuable that we are wasting our time. Even leisure time is being judged by how many experiences you make and it becomes a sort of competition to show off for others on social media. This makes people very restless and anxious and unable to just sit calmly and quietly for extended periods of time without constantly worrying about how they could or should be doing something “productive”. The fact that there is also a constant financial pressure put on people to constantly have to hustle and make money in some way in order to just survive only compounds on this.