this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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So a view I see a lot nowadays is that attention spans are getting shorter, especially when it comes to younger generations. And the growing success of short form content on Tiktok, Youtube and Twitter for example seems to support this claim. I have a friend in their early 20s who regularly checks their phone (sometimes scrolling Tiktok content) as we're watching a film. And an older colleague recently was pleased to see me reading a book, because he felt that anyone my age and younger was less likely to want to invest the time in reading.

But is this actually true on the whole? Does social media like Tiktok really mould our interests and alter our attention? In some respects I can see how it could change our expectations. If we've come to expect a webpage to load in seconds, it can be frustrating when we have to wait minutes. But to someone that was raised with dial-up, perhaps that wouldn't be as much of an issue. In the same way, if a piece of media doesn't capture someone in the first few minutes they may be more inclined to lose focus because they're so used to quick dopamine hits from short form content. Alternatively, maybe this whole argument is just a 'kids these days' fallacy. Obviously there are plenty of young adults that buck this trend.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Wow, 9 years ago!

Good stuff

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edx9D2yaOGs

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it's not the attention. Too little time has gone since the computational revolution of the 70s for us to see any evolutionary changes. The way we communicate and process info had changed very dramatically though. Information travels faster, spreads wider, all the feedback cycles that used to be weeks long have now tightened down to milliseconds. Or culture requires faster reaction, processing and production times of everyone involved.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm very impatient and I don't do that. I think people checking their phones when they are supposed to be watching something is a sign that whatever they're watching doesn't interest them as much.

The only reason I don't switch to my phone is because if realise that's the case, I'd rather do something else entirely instead- imo if it doesn't grab my attention 100% then the time I dedicate to the rest of it feels wasted. But I know people who enjoy series that have a lot of filler and fluff, and they will be multitasking while watching.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As a teacher: Essays written in exam conditions have become shorter over time. The exam is not shorter in length. A successful art, history, or English HSC exam would be completed with 6, 8 or 12 pages or more in the 1990s, and now likely has half those pages. Still 1.5 or 2 hours or three hours long, as it was back in the 90s.

Maths? "Brain breaks" are in vogue. 20 years ago, a high level senior student (age 16-18) would be expected to do calculus for a two hour "double" lesson. Now if they work on calculus for half an hour, they expect to have a ten minute break and start work again. Does this make the student more productive? No, they complete less pages of the same textbook. Newer textbooks, correspondingly, have far less physical work in them than textbooks written 20 years ago.

The "non academic" track? There are less apprenticeships available, and students get rejected from the few that exist. 40 years ago the NSW trains had 200 apprenticeships a year. Now they have four a year. We have had apprentices sent back to us two weeks in with the (fail level) complaint "won't put his phone away." The teen is then put back in the academic track, as education opportunities are compulsory, and they learn nothing as the accusation is true.

Yes, with this evidence, you might be right about this lot.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Attention spans aren’t shorting

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