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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#11

Post by orphea »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
cglong wrote: post #5

I went to a theater to watch Mission: Impossible last night. It has a really long runtime (2h 48m) and, toward the end of the film, I started seeing multiple people pull out their phones for a time check; I had to stop myself from doing the same.

I think that has to do with excessively long movies and nothing to do with reduced attention spans. Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

> I think that has to do with excessively long movies

Anecdotal experience but we (n=2) didn't have the urge to pull out our phones on Oppenheimer (180 minutes).

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#14

Post by jedberg »

orphea wrote: post #11
lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that has to do with excessively long movies and nothing to do with reduced attention spans. Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

> I think that has to do with excessively long movies Anecdotal experience but we (n=2) didn't have the urge to pull out our phones on Oppenheimer (180 minutes).

Oppenheimer is not an action flick. :)

Movies with a compelling story keep your attention, but with action, your brain can only take so much stimulation. Unless it has a really compelling story, your mind will wander.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#15

Post by asynchronous »

dingusdew wrote: post #3

It's not enough to just base this on screens. It's also workplace environments. Even something as "simple" as working in a pizza place, say Domino's, is increasingly a frantic assembly line where orders can come at a breakneck pace through internet applications. You'll still be working somewhere perpetually understaffed and who give you basically no training, but expect you to pay attention to multiple threads at onc…

I’d somewhat agree that culturally we just don’t value sustained single task work anymore. If you can’t multitask 15 things then you’re useless.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#17

Post by OfSanguineFire »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
cglong wrote: post #5

I went to a theater to watch Mission: Impossible last night. It has a really long runtime (2h 48m) and, toward the end of the film, I started seeing multiple people pull out their phones for a time check; I had to stop myself from doing the same.

I think that has to do with excessively long movies and nothing to do with reduced attention spans. Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

> Very, very few action movies need to be more than 100min.

I’ve read somewhere that blockbuster movies are trending longer at the moment, because people are ever less willing to pay the high prices for cinema tickets, drinks and snacks, so movie studios need to offer a really big experience to make it seem worthwhile.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#18

Post by cglong »

kator wrote: post #13
asynchronous wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was gonna ask for a TLDR

just cut-paste in ChatGPT.. why bother reading it..

I just tried that; ChatGPT agrees with this thread :D

> The message you submitted was too long, please reload the conversation and submit something shorter.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#20

Post by trylfthsk »

cglong wrote: post #5

I went to a theater to watch Mission: Impossible last night. It has a really long runtime (2h 48m) and, toward the end of the film, I started seeing multiple people pull out their phones for a time check; I had to stop myself from doing the same.

I think part of it was the movie being mid
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