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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#211

Post by Terr_ »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #112

Permit me to tie a couple of personal observation on this topic. I do not think we "lost" our ability. I think we changed our thinking. I think the world has mostly accepted the "good enough" versus "perfect". As we all have heard, to become an expert, on average we need to pursue the subject for 10 thousand hours (? Malcolm Gladwell). But, we do not need to spend 20 years practicing. We can obtain "good enough" in a…

> I think we changed our thinking. I think the world has mostly accepted the "good enough" versus "perfect". [...] For example, to win [a famous baguette competition] many spend a lifetime perfecting their craft.

Hasn't it always been that way, though?

Decades or centuries ago we've been doing things (e.g. breadmaking) with fewer resources and worse tools and tighter margins, so "good enough" was probably even more important, rather than less. Great works were often made despite those limits, rather than in concert with them. Surely the techniques and investments used in competition are not the same ones that baker would use to feed a large hungry crowd.

"Perfect" probably only showed up either (A) where that's just the next frontier for a successful professional to stay engaged in their craft or promote their brand and (B) products commissioned by figurative if not literal royalty.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#212

Post by lolinder »

billfor wrote: post #209
lolinder wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context since this has now been fixed: the original title as submitted was "Have attention spans been declining? – Yes, 65%". The bit after the dash was erroneously added by the submitter and was not part of the article's actual title.

The article was long so the 65% was the TLDR summary. For people like me with no attention span it was very helpful.

But as OP mentions, the 65% as printed in the title conveyed the false impression that there's been a 65% decline in attention spans, whereas the actual tl;dr should have been this sentence from the end:

> It seems likely to me that individual attention spans have declined (I’d give it ~70%), but I wouldn’t be surprised if the decline was relatively small, noisy & dependent on specific tests.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#213

Post by Fricken »

izzydata wrote: post #58
carabiner wrote: post #41

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 a…

I'd like to believe it is reversible. It's not a genetic problem so it is a problem of environment. If you tech detoxed for a whole year living in the woods or something then tried to read Moby Dick it would likely be very tolerable again. You could study some people who have gone to prison and have little opportunity for endless media consumption.

I don't need to spend a year in the woods for my attention span to come back. A day or so is enough for me to get in the place where I'm able to get lost in a good book. A soon as I'm back within short reach of the internet my attention span goes to hell again.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#215

Post by ghaff »

javajosh wrote: post #194
ghaff wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 hours is probably getting towards the upper limit but it's hardly historically anomalous. Lawrence of Arabia was over 3 1/2 hours and other "epics" of that era were often in the 3+ hour range. (Though movie theaters often had intermissions which most would probably never do today.) Live theater (with an intermission) is often in that range as well although many newer plays seem to be more like straight through 90 m…

Definitely with the intermissions. But I really mean that I often like to stop a long movie, think about it awhile, and then come back to it later. This is how short TV series work, for example. This is also how books work, by their nature. It's a kind of "intellectual digestion" - an intermission is good, but a night's sleep is even better.

Yeah, but no way really to do that for a theatrical release. You can have a Part 1 and a Part 2 spaced a year+ apart if the total length is 3 1/2 to 4 hours a la Dune. That's not what you're asking for though.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#216

Post by fleischhauf »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #112

Permit me to tie a couple of personal observation on this topic. I do not think we "lost" our ability. I think we changed our thinking. I think the world has mostly accepted the "good enough" versus "perfect". As we all have heard, to become an expert, on average we need to pursue the subject for 10 thousand hours (? Malcolm Gladwell). But, we do not need to spend 20 years practicing. We can obtain "good enough" in a…

ADHD is a physical change in the brain tho, it goes so far that it alters the effects of drugs like cocaine

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#217

Post by deadbeeves »

ghaff wrote: post #184
deadbeeves wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more a matter of investment vs. payoff. I read TLotR from beginning to end once and I liked it, but it's such a time sink for so little payoff that I wouldn't do it again. There's so much else I could do with that time instead. I'd rather put the movies in the background while I do something else over the course of nine hours, or maybe reread a specific bit I liked. It's not about instant gratification,…

The Return of the King is particular has a real structure problem. Multiple endings after the actual ending. And then really the final wrapup/epilogue is in the Appendix. The movie tried to clean a lot of this up--most controversially by axing the scouring of the shire--but still didn't wholly succeed.

To be honest, the scouring is one of my favorite bits because it shows how much the main hobbits have grown over the course of their adventure. I think the multiple endings thing worked better in the book for multiple reasons. For one, you could tell at any time that there was still a considerable chunk left to go, so the narrative didn't create any false expectation that it was about to end. But also, unlike in the movie where it does the usual swelling soundtrack and post-climax wrap-up like it's about to finish but then just continues and does it again, I feel like the book doesn't do a literary equivalent of that at all. It doesn't feel like multiple endings, but rather multiple conclusions to separate story arcs, which is something the books do all throughout. The book is just forced to cram several right at the end, because it has to finish somehow. It's unfortunate that the structure didn't translate well to the big screen, at least not without cutting things out.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#218

Post by notJim »

blueblimp wrote: post #97

For those who aren't aware, this blog is infamous for sloppy work. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...

I follow Natália on twitter, and she's repeatedly tried to get them to address her criticisms, to no avail as far as I've seen. It's not a good look for a supposedly scientific blog, especially given that her criticisms are detailed and data-based.

I don't think we should dismiss things based purely on the source, but caution seems warranted (as always, I suppose.)

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#219

Post by DelightOne »

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…

How do you deal with too much information if not by reducing the attention span anyway? There is no time to focus, no?

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#220

Post by camel-cdr »

Zetice wrote: post #182
blueblimp wrote: post #97

For those who aren't aware, this blog is infamous for sloppy work. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...

[flagged]

In the tread:

> > Primarily he focuses not on developing a Strong AI (AGI), but rather focusing on safety issues that such a technology would pose.

> That's absurd at worst, science fiction at best, akin to worrying about manned flight safety in the 1500's.

It sure seems more warranted now.

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