How many of you, when attempting to study, get distracted by the internet? I’m guessing quite a few of you. If you are, even ever so slightly, an animal lover you’ll probably end up on Youtube, looking at some form of cute animal video.
As a veterinary student, this is one of my obvious weaknesses and I can spend hours on Youtube, watching other people’s pets do cute and adorable things, whilst wishing I had the space for my own.
Up until very recently I assumed that this cute animal video obsession was a waste of time and simply a way for me to procrastinate from studying … or is it?
An experiment carried out at Hiroshima University in Japan, showed that looking
at cute baby animals or pictures of them, for any period of time, can actually raise your concentration levels by up to 44%! According to professor Nittono, this increase in concentration, is due to the emotional response people have to cute animals; generally they want to get a closer look, meaning that they concentrate more so as to take in the little details of the object. This then leads to a higher 
concentration level when completely tasks immediately after viewing these cute baby animals. And the increase percentage in concentration is directly related to the cuteness of the animal. The cuter it is, the more studying you’ll get done!
Now all I have to do, is convince my family that I’ve known this for years and that I wasn’t just avoiding the books!