<b>Native's "engaged time" includes the time you spent leaving</b>

<b>Native's "engaged time" includes the time you spent leaving</b>

<b>Myth:</b> Native drives higher engaged-time-on-page, proving deeper attention.

Wrong. Most engaged-time metrics count any open tab with sporadic events as "engaged." The native-sourced visitor who clicked a curiosity-gap headline, realized they were tricked, and left the tab open while they scrolled elsewhere — that's logged as deep engagement.

The metric rewards exactly the friction native creates. Confused, slow-to-bounce visitors look identical to fascinated ones in aggregate.

De-confound it: cross engaged time with scroll depth and conversion. Long time + shallow scroll + no action isn't engagement, it's a visitor who couldn't find the back button fast enough. Supposedly that's your most attentive traffic.