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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#41

Post by carabiner »

Trying to read classic literature really makes this apparent. Hemingway's Sun Also Rises must have been a riveting adventure story when it was published in 1926, but how can it compete with 10,000 hours of adventure travel on youtube, netflix etc.? Same with Moby Dick in 1850s... these were glimpses into exotic lives rarely heard of back then, but today you can find those stories or similar in vivid moving pictures and audio everywhere, in much more digestible forms.

I really wish I could appreciate these great human achievements in the arts, but at least for books, I don't think my tech-atrophied brain has the ability.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#42

Post by svnt »

The data by age show a consistent decline in attention: 34 to 55 year-olds were significantly lower than either 18 to 34 or 55+

This is interesting because it fits with none of the hypotheses and none is suggested. What could it be? To me it suggests that working and/or raising children have negative impacts on attention span.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#44

Post by gochi »

asynchronous wrote: post #15
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.

Even financially we have decimated entire fields because they were single task.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#45

Post by redandblack »

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.

take your time and watch das boot director cut

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#46

Post by mrweasel »

europeanNyan wrote: post #34
morkalork wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true but it's getting to be too much. I want to see Oppenheimer in theatres but 3 hours plus travel is just killing it for me.

Don't forget the ads. They have gotten obnoxiously long. The last time I went, the ads for products and trailers went on for 45 minutes with an intermission so they can sell ice cream and snacks. I haven't been to the movies since.

Years ago I went with a friend to see Transformers. He is an absolute massive Transformers fan, so he insisted that we arrive no later than an hour before the movie would start. Me and my girlfriend meet up with him and a few other 90 minutes before, got our tickets, went for dinner and arrived about when the commercials ended and the trailers started. My friend was completely out of it, in his mind we missed part of the experience. I think he's the kind of customers the movies want.

For me, I just get my ticket in advance and show up about 20 minutes late, seems to work out fine.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#47

Post by ceejayoz »

bizzleDawg wrote: post #21

I may be reading this incorrectly, but in the article, the 65% appears to be authors confidence in the statement that attention spans appear to be declining, as denoted by the sub-script. Whereas in the HN title it reads as if it's saying a "65% decline in attention span". Various other assertions in the post also have sub-script confidences associated e.g. "my guess: yes90%". I could totally believe that there has b…

> Whereas in the HN title it reads as if it's saying a "65% decline in attention span".

Perhaps the submitter's attention span ran out.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#48

Post by Brusco_RF »

bizzleDawg wrote: post #21

I may be reading this incorrectly, but in the article, the 65% appears to be authors confidence in the statement that attention spans appear to be declining, as denoted by the sub-script. Whereas in the HN title it reads as if it's saying a "65% decline in attention span". Various other assertions in the post also have sub-script confidences associated e.g. "my guess: yes90%". I could totally believe that there has b…

Thanks for mentioning that book. I am trying to decide if it's worth reading. The negative reviews agree with the main premise of the book but say it's short and superficial. Is there information in there worth reading beyond the usual tips ie keeping your phone in another room, avoid news first thing in the morning, no screen time 2 hours before bed, long cardio workouts, etc?

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#50

Post by crooked-v »

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.

M:I:DR has some very weird editing in the train sequence as a consequence of the production wildly over-scoping it originally, so I'm not surprised some people would end up with their sense of how much more movie is left totally thrown off.
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