Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California at Irvine, reported that the median length of time people can hold their attention in front of a computer screen or phone is 40 seconds.
In other words, about every 40 seconds most people get distracted and switch actions. Consider your own cell phone habits. Now picture the following scenario: You’re writing an email for work or a paper for class when you receive a phone notification from on Facebook (or TikTok, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). Next you open the message and click on the link that you received from your friend and before you even realize it you’re trying to buy toilet paper from Amazon!
(Helpful tip: Turn off all your phone notifications and silence your phone completely when you’re performing a task that requires your undivided attention.)
These patterns of unconsciously getting sucked down the rabbit hole are so common. What most people don’t realize is that the over-usage of cell phones combined with the typical cell phone habit of incessantly jumping from one app to the next can negatively impact ones ability to sustain the heightened level of concentration required in volleyball. Obviously screen time concentration doesn’t directly transfer to volleyball, but if you’re training your mind to focus for 40 second increments, it is going to have a negative impact on your ability to focus for an extended period of time on the court.
Now consider that the average length of a volleyball rally in NCAA Division I typically lasts anywhere between 13 and 60 seconds. Rallies for Division II and III teams tend to last even longer. Just check out this 1.55 minute rally won by North Texas back in October of 2019. Or this 1.12 minute rally between Nebraska and Illinois in 2015 deemed the Big Ten’s longest point ever. Collegiate volleyball matches are filled with rallies lasting longer than 40 seconds. The point here is that volleyball players need to train themselves to concentrate for short bursts of time for an extended period time.
The good news is that concentration is a skill that you can develop, just like passing or setting. The key is learning how to adjust your attentional field so that it only includes performance-relevantinternal factors and external factors.
Internal factors are thoughts, emotions or feelings. These are things that an individual player experiences during a game but her teammates and coaches can’t see or hear. External factors are external sights and sounds, such as a coach yelling or the fans cheering. The most successful athletes know how to block out irrelevant and harmful distractions during competition and zero-in on only the factors that matter in the moment.
Learning how to adjust your focus under pressure takes practice, but with dedication you’ll find you can improve your concentration over time. My book covers practical strategies that you can implement during practices or games under pressure. The Headstrong workbook also includes activities that you can do to improve your concentration, as well as a ton of free resources to help you improve your concentration on the volleyball court.